The Wailing Woman in the Haunted House
by Jestress
Summary: After months of their secret marriage, a new assignment and a Halloween project of Philip and Jamie's brings new changes to the Stetson-King family and the revelation of some secrets.
1. Right Up Your Street

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Scarecrow and Mrs. King or any of the characters associated with the show. But, like ghosties and ghoulies, we come out to play on Halloween. ;)

Any characters you don't recognize are ones that I made up. I also have references to previous stories I've written.

The song Magalena Hagalena is a favorite from camps and schools all over and comes in about a hundred variations. This is part of the one I remember from when I was a kid.

 **Explanation:** Every year, for the past few years, I've been doing Halloween stories for SMK, and so far, I've been keeping to the timeline of the show. Last year, I hit the fourth season. But, that left me uncertain about what to do next year. What to do, what to do, I pondered. Finally, I decided to do one that takes place the following year, in an imaginary 5th season of the show. Everyone has ideas about what happens after the show ends. Here's my take. Some parts will be kind of like people have already speculated. Some parts are, well, just me speculating. Don't assume anything.

Of course, this also begs the question: What am I going to do next year? Am I going to do anything next year? . . . Eh, I'll probably figure something out. You know, eventually. Maybe. Muahahaha!

 **The Wailing Woman in the Haunted House**

 **By Jestress**

 **Chapter 1: Right Up Your Street**

There were three reasons why things turned out the way they did. When they talked it over later, both Lee and Amanda agreed that much of what happened wouldn't have happened at all if Linda Montez hadn't moved to California at the end of the summer. Fourteen-year-old Philip spent the first month of school moping around about the loss of his first-ever girlfriend.

Amanda told Philip that it was natural to feel a little sad but that he'd have plenty of other girlfriends and things would work out better for him in the future. Lee didn't doubt it. In another year, Philip would be entering high school. He was growing like a weed, and he was turning out to be a pretty good-looking guy. Girls were definitely going to notice him. Some of them might even be sad if he didn't notice them, Lee pointed out to Philip, and he probably would notice more of them if he didn't mope so much about Linda. Linda was a nice girl, but there were plenty of other nice girls for Philip to notice.

Philip's twelve-year-old brother Jamie spent the first month of school rolling his eyes at his brother's moodiness. Amanda told Jamie not to bother his brother and to have a little sympathy. After all, someday he'd have a girlfriend of his own, and it's always sad when a relationship ends. Lee knew from personal experience that Jamie would find that out eventually, and the more he teased Philip, the less sympathy he'd get when it was his turn to mope.

As far as Philip and Jamie were concerned, Lee was their mother's co-worker and boyfriend, a director who worked for a documentary film company called International Federal Film (IFF). They were unaware that Lee and their mother were actually married and that Lee was their stepfather. They had no idea that both Lee and their mother were spies and that the documentary film company was just a cover for a secret government intelligence organization known simply as "The Agency." Their profession was the primary reason why Lee and Amanda had married secretly the year before, not even telling Amanda's family or their closest associates.

At the time, it had seemed like a reasonable thing to do. The secrecy would protect Amanda's family and allow them to continue working together without co-workers complaining about their personal relationship. But, both of them knew that they couldn't keep up the act forever.

Although Philip and Jamie were still unaware that Lee and Amanda had eloped and that he was now their stepfather, Lee knew it, and more and more, he was feeling a fatherly obligation to help the kids and teach them a few life lessons. He maintained a separate apartment in Georgetown to keep the marriage a secret, but he was acutely aware of everything that happened in the King household.

Lee knew that Amanda's ex-husband, Joe, was leaving town the first week of October with his new wife. They were taking an extended trip to Europe until November. He knew that the trip (and the new wife) had occupied much of Joe's attention recently, and that both the boys were feeling neglected. He also knew that Philip and Jamie would both feel better if they had something do to take their minds off of everything that was bothering them. He urged both the boys to get involved with some kind of project, if not something going on at school, then something fun they could do with their friends. That was the second reason why things turned out the way they did.

The third reason was that things were quiet at work. Too quiet. And, that was a bad sign. At least, in Lee's experience it was. With the way things were going, who could say for sure? And, that in itself made Lee uneasy.

During slow times at work, people who didn't have enough to do would turn the attention to rumors about their colleagues. For a time at the Agency, Amanda and Lee pretended to break off their personal relationship because their co-worker Francine had become concerned about their romantic life. Francine's rather chaotic romantic life and rumors of a new love interest for her had distracted their other colleagues for awhile, but the novelty of that was wearing off, and the rumor mill was once again focusing on him and Amanda. Lee was starting to hear the whispers again and see people at the Agency giving them odd looks as they passed by in the hallway.

Billy Melrose, head of the Field Section of the Agency, maintained a dignified silence when these rumors reached him, but then, Lee knew that he and Amanda had never been able to fool him in the first place. Whether he knew anything about their secret marriage was a matter for debate, but he had admitted to both of them that he was alright with their relationship "whatever it is." He was aware that they were romantically involved.

He hadn't gone any further than that, but he had never stopped giving Lee little hints about handling married life and kids, and the hints were coming with increasing frequency. It was even more telling that Billy was now arranging the duty roster so that Lee was always free for Philip's baseball games and had given him last Thursday off without him even asking so that he could go with Amanda to see Jamie receive first prize in the science fair. Billy might or might not know the exact status of their relationship, but he was keenly aware that Lee had become a regular fixture in the life of the King family. At least, he was trying to be.

With things being slow at work recently, taking a little time to spend with the boys hadn't been difficult. In fact, it was too easy. Lee was starting to have other concerns besides the rumors that had been flying around about his relationship with Amanda.

"I don't like it," Lee said to Amanda on Monday morning during the first week in October. "It feels weird."

"What does?" Amanda asked, looking up from her computer.

"This," Lee said expansively, waving his hand at the Q-Bureau in general. "It's quiet. Too quiet."

The purpose of the Q-Bureau, a small office somewhat loosely attached to the main Field Section (although housed in a completely different part of the Agency), was to handle odd cases and situations that didn't quite fit the main work of the Field Section. Sometimes, it was big stuff that threatened the security of the entire nation. Sometimes, it was little things that could be resolved in a day or a week, like investigating strange people who may or may not turn out to be significant or overseeing security for small gatherings of important people. There were unusual cases in their files that were still considered "open" because they'd never really been "closed." But, nothing was happening concerning any of that right now. No new leads on old cases. No new orders for the week. Not even a message from Billy. Nothing was happening.

"I've finished totaling up our expenses for the month, and they're ready to submit to accounting," Amanda offered. "That's something."

"That's nothing," Lee said. He felt as moody as Philip.

Seeing Amanda's expression, he quickly relented. "Sorry. It's just that . . . I think this is the calm before the storm."

"The calm before the storm?"

"When nothing's happening around here, that means that something is going to happen soon. Something really big."

"Not necessarily," Amanda said, printing out their expense lists. "Maybe things are just, you know, really quiet."

"No," Lee said. "This is espionage, Amanda. Things are never just really quiet. Nations, people all over the world, always want to know what each other is up to."

"Maybe nobody's really up to anything right now." Amanda always liked to look on the bright side.

"Not up to anything?" Lee asked. "When Philip and Jamie are being really quiet, is that when they're not up to anything?"

"Well, when you put it like that . . ."

"Never mind," Lee said. "Some questions just answer themselves."

Amanda smiled. "You need something to do. Why don't you come over tonight and have dinner with me and the boys? Mother is going out with Captain Kurt."

The night before was one of the all-too-rare nights when they'd been able to be together as a married couple because the boys were staying with their father before he left on his trip and their grandmother had gone to visit her sister for the weekend. With Joe gone for the month of October, Philip and Jamie wouldn't have any weekend visits, and it would probably be November before they'd be able to spend another night together. But, they could still have dinner. They told themselves that was good enough for now.

Eventually, Lee and Amanda were either going to have to tell Amanda's family that they were married or else get married all over again publicly. They had talked about it many times. They were both tired of trying to hide their relationship, of keeping two separate homes. It was going to mean changes to their careers and major adjustments for Amanda's family. They still weren't quite sure how to handle it all, but helping the boys adjust to Lee's presence in the family was a step in the right direction.

"Sure," Lee said. "We might as well take advantage of the calm before the storm."

"I'll just go run this down to accounting, and I'll be right back," Amanda said. She gave him a peck on the lips before leaving the office and heading downstairs.

Lee leaned back in his chair and thought. Maybe he should just relax and enjoy this lull for what it was. Maybe he and Amanda could take a long lunch break, maybe even swing over to his place again. Maybe nothing big would happen for awhile yet.

"Good morning, people!" Billy said cheerfully, letting himself into Q-Bureau. He had a box of donuts in his hands and a thick file folder under his arm. "Where's Amanda?" He stopped, looking around for her.

"Just taking our expenses to Accounting," Lee said, straightening up. Inwardly, he groaned. He liked Billy, but Billy's presence in the office meant that he probably wasn't going to take Amanda out for a long lunch.

"Well, maybe it's just as well if I talk to you first," Billy said, taking a seat on the Q-Bureau's couch. "I want to talk to you about your next assignment. It's right up Amanda's street, but I don't think she's going to like it."

"Oh?" Lee asked, raising his eyebrows. "What is the assignment?"

"Managing security for a family of defectors," Billy said.

"That sounds pretty routine," Lee said. "Who are they?"

"Anton Petrescu, a scientist from Romania. He and his wife, Doina, came here several years ago with their daughter, Antonia. He used to be a chemical researcher, but since he and family resettled in California, he's gotten into computer technology. He's employed by a private development company, but he's currently working on a top secret project for the Pentagon. They won't even tell us exactly what it is, only that they require his 'unique combination of skills' as they put it."

"So, now that he'll be working in the D.C. area," Lee said, "he and his family will need protection and a secure place to live?"

"That's right," Billy said. "We've already found a place for them to live, and we're all set to start moving them in next week. I want you and Amanda to oversee the project and their security arrangements."

"Okay. Where is it?" Lee asked.

"I already told you: right up Amanda's street."

Lee groaned. "You mean they're moving into Amanda's neighborhood? Why Amanda's neighborhood?"

"Where else could we find an available house at the right time for the right price and conveniently located so that we could keep an eye on these people?"

"Come on, Billy! You know how these things go. Every time we put someone even remotely close to Amanda's neighborhood, her mother starts poking her nose in! Remember the Russian scientist she fell in love with?"

Billy winced at the memory. He'd had to interview Mrs. West at the end of that escapade.

"Well, there's no worry about her falling in love with this guy," Billy said. "He's about the same age as Amanda, and he's married with a thirteen-year-old daughter."

Lee did some quick calculations in his head. "Did you say thirteen?"

"Yeah."

"So, she's right between Philip and Jamie in age?"

"Now that you mention it, I guess so."

"So she'll be going to school with them, then?"

"Arlington Heights Middle School."

Lee groaned and put his head in his hands.

"I don't suppose Amanda is going to take that well, is she? But, there's no risk to her sons. She's between them in age, so she'll be in a different grade from each of them. They probably won't even see her or talk to her, and even if they do talk to her at school, they still won't be involved in Agency business."

"You don't understand," Lee said, lifting his eyes from his hands. "Philip's broken up because his first-ever girlfriend moved away. Now, a girl about his age moves into his neighborhood, just down the street, and his mother takes over a welcome basket or something. You think Philip's _not_ going to go over and investigate?"

"So what if he does?" Billy said. "Security will make sure that everyone is safe in that house, including guests, and even if Philip says 'hi' to the girl, that's no guarantee that he'll get involved with her."

"You don't know Philip," Lee grumbled. "The kid's turning into a little Romeo."

"Is he?" There was a glint of humor in Billy's eyes.

"He's a fourteen-year-old boy," Lee said. "Practically all he thinks about are girls and cars, even though he's not really old enough to date any more than he's old enough to drive."

"Then, it sounds like he could use some sage words of advice from a man who's older, wiser, and more experienced, someone who could be a positive role model for him." Billy was giving Lee a meaningful look, the same kind of meaningful look he'd been giving him for the last year or so, whenever the subject of Amanda and her kids came up.

"Well," Lee said casually, "I don't know how likely he is to take your advice, but if you want to talk to the kid, you'll have to schedule it with Amanda."

If anyone was likely to figure out that Lee was already Philip's stepfather, it was Billy. Those meaningful looks he'd been giving might mean that he suspected it. Lee's joking comments weren't throwing him off as much as they used to.

"You know what I mean," Billy said seriously. "You've got a point that Philip's not a little boy anymore, and at this point in his life, he could use a man to talk to. You could steer him away from this girl, if you think it's likely to cause problems."

Lee ran a hand through his hair. "His father would really be the best one to talk to him. But, he and his new wife are leaving for Europe tomorrow. They didn't get a very long honeymoon because they had to work, so this is to kind of make up for it."

Even before they'd decided to take this trip, as Lee understood it, Joe had been so wrapped up with his new bride that his weekends with the boys hadn't been very much fun. The kids' stepmother didn't seem like a bad woman, but the couple was still very much in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, and it seemed like Joe's new wife didn't know much about kids. Lee wondered when or if Philip and his dad had time for a real, heart-to-heart talk about anything, including girls.

"So, you could use this time to get close to Philip," Billy suggested. "It might be good for a number of reasons." The meaningful look was back.

"When are the Petrescus coming?" Lee asked, returning to the other subject.

"In two weeks," Billy said. "This is going to be kind of a rushed job, which is why we had to take the first convenient house we could find. The family was renting a furnished house in California, so we're providing them with furniture from our storehouse temporarily until they can buy new things."

"Amanda's going to love that," Lee thought. "She always says that the Agency movers aren't careful about what they pick out and where they put it when they have to furnish a house."

Out loud, Lee asked, "So, they will be living here for the long term, not just for a temporary project?"

"No one knows exactly how long this project will take," Billy said. "It's meant to be a long-term one, but that depends on how successful it is. Dr. Smyth told me that he's particularly interested in the results. He's the only one at the Agency who knows what the project is, and all he'll tell me is that It may have some bearing on a new project that he also has in mind."

"What's that?"

"He doesn't want to talk about it openly yet."

"I still think that putting them so close to Amanda's family is asking for trouble."

"It's too late to change the Petrescus' housing arrangement," Billy said. "The best thing would be for you and Amanda to be on hand to help them. You can look after Amanda's boys as well as the Petrescus."

Lee would have argued more, but Amanda came in just then.

"Good morning, Amanda," Billy said cheerfully. "Would you like a donut?"

Lee suspected that the donuts were a peace offering because of the nature of their assignment.

"Oh, no thank you, sir. I'm not hungry."

"Are you alright?" Billy asked.

"I'm fine. I had a sandwich earlier."

"Peanut butter and pickle," Lee said, wrinkling his nose.

"That doesn't sound like you," Billy said, looking her up and down.

"I've had a craving for them lately."

"You have?" Billy looked surprised.

"But, thank you anyway," Amanda said politely.

"Well, I'd better get going. I'll leave the box here in case you change your mind," Billy said. He gave Amanda an odd look. Then, he placed the file folder he held on Lee's desk. "Everything you need to know about the Petrescus is in here. You'll also need to supervise the moving process and the security arrangements. I'll just leave you to it."

Billy left the room with another cheery, "Good morning!"

"Good morning, sir," Amanda said with equal cheerfulness.

"Just wait," Lee thought.

Billy was wriggling out of telling Amanda about their new assignment. He was leaving it entirely up to Lee.

"Who are the Petrescus?" Amanda asked.

"Lovely family," Lee said gloomily. "They're right up your street. Or, they will be in two weeks."


	2. Enterprising Young Men

**Chapter 2: Enterprising Young Men**

As expected, Amanda wasn't any happier about the new neighbors than Lee was.

"What are we going to tell the boys?" Amanda asked as they drove to Amanda's house that evening.

"What do we need to tell them?" Lee asked. "Maybe the less they know the better. Maybe they won't pay any attention to the Petrescus."

Neither of them really believed it. That was part of the reason why Lee was eager to encourage the boys when they announced Philip's "Great Idea."

"I had a great idea the other day at Dad's," Philip said over dinner.

Dinner was nothing fancy, just a stew that Amanda had thrown together with the remains of the pot roast she'd made for herself and Lee the other night.

"What great idea, Sweetheart?" Amanda asked.

"This Halloween, I want to make a haunted house in the garage," Philip said.

"Yeah!" Jamie said eagerly. The boys had apparently talked it over between the two of them already.

"A haunted house?" Amanda asked. "I thought you didn't like them."

Lee knew that last year, Philip had a frightening experience with a haunted house that his father had taken them to. He thought that he'd seen a real ghost.

Philip shrugged. "They're okay. And, we already have what we need for the walls."

"What kind of walls?" Amanda asked.

"Remember the old curtains at Dad's law office?" Jamie asked.

"Those big, black, heavy things?" Amanda asked.

"Right," Philip said. "Well, they're replacing them. Dad said that they decided black was too depressing and made the place look like a funeral parlor."

"They kind of did," Amanda said to Lee.

"But, Dad told us if we wanted them, we could have them," Philip said.

"Why would you want them?" Amanda asked.

"For the haunted house!" Philip said. "Remember that haunted house we had at school a few years ago?"

"Yes," Amanda said.

Lee remembered that haunted house himself, although he couldn't explain to the boys that he had seen it and why.

"They used black curtains for the walls, and we could do the same thing," Philip said. "And, we could earn money by charging admission."

Ah, Lee thought, there's the motivation. Philip might have been badly spooked by the haunted house last year, but the prospect of earning some extra cash was enough to make him regain his courage. He'd have to find out later what the boys wanted to spend it on.

"I don't know, Sweetheart," Amanda said. "That sounds like it would take an awful lot of work."

"Jamie and I could do it," Philip insisted. "Dad already dropped off the curtains. We put them in the garage."

"Oh, did he?" Amanda sounded annoyed.

Philip either didn't hear it or decided to ignore it. "We can hang up the black curtains in the garage to make rooms, and we can get some of our friends to help."

"I can do the lighting and sound effects," Jamie said.

Lee didn't doubt it. Jamie was the electronics expert of the family. Philip wasn't bad with mechanical stuff, having already demonstrated his skills by experimenting on Lee's car (without permission, but fortunately for him, without damaging the car), but Jamie was the real science whiz.

"Well, what kind of things would you have in the haunted house?" Amanda asked. In spite of her annoyance, she wasn't saying no. At least, not right away.

Jamie started listing things. "Vampires, witches, werewolves, ghosts . . ."

"Axe murderers!" Philip said, an unholy gleam in his eyes. "With lots of blood. And zombies, flesh-eating ones!"

"I think that would be too scary for the neighborhood kids, Philip," Amanda said.

"Our friends wouldn't be that scared of axe murderers," Philip insisted. "They'd think it was cool."

"If you make the place too scary, the other kids aren't going to want to spend money to come inside," Lee pointed out. "You have to consider your audience." Amanda smiled at him.

"Come on, it's cool!" Philip said. "Who's really scared of vampires and ghosts anyway?"

"You," Jamie said pointedly.

"No!"

"Boys," Amanda said.

"Just having a bunch of ghosts in sheets would be dumb!" Philip said. "You want everyone in the neighborhood to think we're lame, Wormbrain?"

"Boys!" Amanda said.

"Linda Montez isn't here to hold your hand this time," Jamie dug at Philip.

For a moment, Philip looked almost mad enough to hit his brother. "You-!"

"Cut it out! Both of you!" Lee said, raising his voice.

The boys quieted down, glancing at their mother. She gave them a firm look, supporting Lee.

"Jamie, that was mean and uncalled-for," she said, "and Philip, I've told you many times not to call Jamie 'Wormbrain.'"

The boys mumbled apologies that they didn't completely mean.

"It sounds like you haven't really planned out what you want yet," Lee said, returning to the subject of the haunted house. "I think, before you commit yourself to building anything, you should get some things straight on paper. If you want to get a lot of people to come to your haunted house, you should make it appeal to a wide audience."

"Yeah," Jamie said. Lee wasn't sure whether he was agreeing because it was a good idea or because he was still mad at Philip. He gave Jamie a sharp look.

"But vampires and ghosts are boring!" Philip grumbled as he stirred the last of his stew. "Everyone has vampires and ghosts. Our haunted house should be . . . different."

"Well, there's all kinds of monsters and ghosts," Lee said. "My uncle and I moved around a lot when I was young, and I've heard all kinds of stories from around the world."

"Like what?" Jamie asked eagerly.

Lee searched his memory as he ladled himself another helping of stew.

"Well, there's La Llorona, the Crying Woman, who walks alongside rivers and throws people in to drown them. They say that did the same thing to her own children, and now she wails for them, even while pushing other people in to meet the same fate," Lee said in a creepy voice.

"That's pretty dark," Amanda said.

Philip said, "It's still a ghost." Before Jamie could accuse him of being scared again, he added, "But not a bad story. What else?"

Lee was thinking hard. "Jenny Greenteeth is a similar creature from England. Skinwalkers are Navajo witches who are kind of like werewolves, but they can change into different animals, and they can do it at will. They use the bones of dead people to cast evil spells."

"Gnarly!" Philip said, looking more interested.

"That still sounds pretty scary," Amanda commented.

"But, that's the idea!" Philip said.

"Can we have werewolves that use dead people bones in our haunted house?" Jamie asked, looking at his mother. "Would that be too scary for little kids?"

Amanda said, "I'm still wondering who's going to do all the work of helping you set up this haunted house. Your father gave you those curtains, but he's going to be out of town, so he can't help you hang them up."

Lee could hear that slight note of irritation in her voice. It wasn't so much that she was against the haunted house idea in general, it was that Joe had gotten the boys started and excited about a project that he had no intention of playing any part in.

But, Lee thought charitably, maybe it wasn't Joe's fault. After all, Philip wasn't a little kid. He was turning into a young man, fully capable of coming up with his own schemes. Philip had seen the haunted house at school, and Joe wasn't even in the country at the time. This idea was probably completely Philip's. And it gave Lee an idea of his own.

"I can hang them up!" Philip said. "They're just curtains."

"I wouldn't mind giving you a hand," Lee said before Amanda could protest. Amanda looked surprised.

"Really?" Jamie asked Lee.

"Sure. If it's okay with your mom," Lee added quickly. "I've never helped with a haunted house before. It might be fun."

"Alright!" Philip said.

"It's okay if Lee helps. Right, Mom?" Jamie asked. "He's a director. He could, you know, help direct us."

Lee was glad that the boys accepted his help, even if it was mostly so that they could get their way. Even though Lee wasn't really a film director, as they thought, he did have experience with giving other agents orders and seeing that the orders were followed. He thought that he could manage the boys.

"If he can help," Amanda said, looking at Lee. "Do you think you'll have time to do it?"

"I think I can make some time," Lee said. "Things have been pretty slow lately at work."

"So, we can have Skinwalkers and things like that in the haunted house?" Philip asked Lee.

Amanda was starting to look amused, waiting for Lee's answer.

Lee considered the question. "Well, we don't have to tell the younger kids that it's a Skinwalker. We could just call it a werewolf for them, and then you can explain what it really is to the older kids to make it scarier."

"Yeah, that would be good," Jamie said thoughtfully.

"You're not going to let really little kids in the haunted house, will you?" Amanda asked.

"Really little kids wouldn't have the money to pay," Philip pointed out.

Philip was turning into quite the enterprising young man, Lee thought.

"What else?" Jamie asked. "What other monsters can we have?"

Old, half-forgotten stories were coming back to Lee.

"Spring-Heeled Jack is a character with glowing red eyes that can jump really high," Lee said. "I think he also breathes fire in blue and white flames. Manticores are part man, part lion, and they've got scorpion tales."

Lee wasn't sure he should have mentioned those. He couldn't think of a good way to create a manticore for the haunted house, and Amanda might kill him if the boys used real fire.

Ignoring that for the moment, Lee continued, "Chupacabras are large and bear-like, and they suck the blood out of livestock. Banshees are spooky women who wail when someone's about to die."

"I'm writing these down," Jamie said. He got up and grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil off the kitchen counter. Sitting back down, he said, "This is good stuff. Any others?"

"There's always the Headless Horseman," Lee suggested. "We don't have a horse, but I know how to create a headless man costume for one of you to wear. Egyptian gods and goddesses look pretty freaky because they're people with animal heads. The Mongolian Death Worm spits poisonous venom."

"Also gnarly!" Philip said.

It was fun, coming up gruesome ideas to gladden the hearts of his stepsons and spark their youthful imaginations. They just had to be careful, choosing what they would finally use in the haunted house. All the monsters had to be things they could make and that weren't too disgusting or Amanda wouldn't allow them.

"Why don't you guys take some time this week to talk it over, see if your friends want to help, decide what monsters you want to use, maybe make kind of a map or plan of what you want the haunted house to look like. It would be easier to put the thing together if you already have it drawn out on paper."

"Okay," Philip said. "Thanks, Lee!"

The boys took their dishes to the sink and then ran upstairs to do their plotting. Amanda called after them to remember to do their homework, too.

"Are you okay with the boys' haunted house idea?" Lee asked as they started the dishes. "If you're really not, I could come up with something else for the boys to do on Halloween."

"I'm okay with it," Amanda said, "but it I think it's important for them to have some adult supervision so that they don't get too carried away with it. Mother isn't likely to do it. She doesn't like scary monsters or anything gory on Halloween."

"I remember. She likes to think of Halloween as a peaceful harvest festival, right?"

"Right. And, I doubt that the boys would agree to hold a barn dance. Are you sure we'll have the time to help them?"

"I think so." Lee glanced over his shoulder to make sure that the boys hadn't come back downstairs. "Our assignment is pretty routine and close to home. Things have been pretty quiet lately."

"The assignment is uncomfortably close to home. What about your premonition earlier, the 'calm before the storm'?"

Lee shrugged. "We might as well enjoy the calm while it lasts. Besides, it would be a good chance for me to get to know the boys better."

"That's true. You'll be supervising some of their friends, too. I'll have to remind them to invite only a few friends to join them. The garage isn't big enough for very many."

Lee smiled. "Just tell them if they invite too many kids to be in the haunted house, who will come visit?"

Amanda laughed.

"We can also tell them that whoever helps them should get a share in the profits, too," Lee commented. "That should make them be more choosy about their helpers."

"Good thinking."

"Something else good may come out of this," Lee said, checking around for listeners again. "Maybe this project will keep them busy enough that they won't ask any questions about our assignment or the Petrescus."

"I wouldn't count on it," Amanda said. "We're going to be doing a lot of work close to home. Moving the family in, checking security. Mother and the boys are bound to notice. What do we say?"

"I've had an idea about that. It was what Jamie said about me being a director . . ."


	3. Setting Up House

**Chapter 3: Setting Up House**

The cover story Lee and Amanda decided to use for the Petrescus was that a new technical adviser was joining IFF, and since things were pretty quiet at work, they were helping him and his family move into their new home. It wasn't too far from the truth, although Anton Petrescu would be working for the Pentagon, not the Agency. The Petrescus would need a cover story to tell to their neighbors anyway, and the role of a "technical advisor" to a documentary film company fit well, especially since they were coming from California. It would seem natural to people that someone who had lived in California might have worked in the film industry.

"It's really nice that someone you're working with will be living close," Dotty said. "You might be friends outside of work, too. Maybe they can come over and play cards sometime. Do you suppose they play cards?"

"Maybe, Mother," Amanda said. "I haven't met them yet, so I don't know."

As Lee suspected, Amanda insisted on picking out items of furniture from the Agency's warehouse for the Petrescus' house. The Agency had some standard groupings of furniture to be used in suburban situations when they needed to set up a household or the appearance of a household in a hurry, but they had all been used many times and frequently consisted of eclectic pieces of furniture.

After the last time he and Amanda had used one such grouping, Amanda had donated a new set of kitchen curtains and rug to it as well as her mother's old stuffed buffalo head. The curtains and rug were important, she had insisted, because it didn't look right that the old set didn't match. The buffalo head was an accident because her mother thought she was putting together items for a rummage sale and donated it. Lee had actually become attached to the buffalo head before the end of the case. If the décor in their mock living room was a scream, the buffalo head was the exclamation point at the end of it.

This time, Amanda had insisted on picking out sets of items from different groupings to achieve more of a matching effect throughout the Petrescu house. The Requisitions Department complained about it, but Lee leaned on them and got them to go along with it. It might even be good to change items around between sets, he argued. Some of the pieces of furniture were more worn than others, and it would be more efficient to replace a set of worn stuff as a whole than piecemeal from different groupings.

Philip did look curious when they mentioned that the Petrescus had a daughter, but Lee asked about how the plans for the haunted house were coming and successfully distracted him.

"I drew a map of the haunted house," Philip said. "The garage isn't very big, so I think we'll have just two main rooms. We can have a short hallway leading in and another one leading out."

"Are you sure you'll have room for the hallways?" Lee asked.

"I measured it," Philip assured him. "It will work. The hallways will make the haunted house seem bigger, like we have more rooms, and we can use the first one to kind of set the stage."

"You won't be taking kids up in the loft, will you?" Amanda asked. "Remember that trap door!"

Lee remembered the loft and the trap door. The loft was kind of like a small attic above the garage. Lee knew from experience that it mostly contained Christmas decorations, old toys, and camping equipment. He'd once had to hide out there while most of his friends and co-workers believed that he was dead. For awhile, Amanda had let him stay in her house, but her mother and the boys had come back unexpectedly early from a trip. He'd had to move into the garage to hide from them, and he'd slept on a cot in the loft. A set of wooden stairs at the back of the garage led up to it, and there was a window that looked out onto the driveway.

While he was staying there, Amanda had warned Lee about the trap door. The stairway was a recent addition to the garage. Originally, the loft had a trap door with a ladder that led up to it. Amanda didn't think it was very safe, so Joe had the stairs built instead. Unfortunately, he never did get around to boarding up the old trap door. Even though the trap door seemed sturdy enough to support the weight of an adult standing on it, Amanda kept a small table over it so that no one could step on it and fall through by accident. She said that one of these days, she'd have it closed up, but money was often tight, and she was too busy to think much about it.

"We won't," Philip promised. "The haunted house will all be on the ground floor."

As the week went on, Dotty took the boys to the library, where Philip checked out books about how to set up a haunted house and Jamie checked out more books about electronics and some tapes of sound effects. He had some plans for rigging a lighting system for the garage and playing appropriate sounds to go with the displays they were going to set up. He spent a good part of the week tinkering at the workbench under the stairs to the loft in the garage.

One afternoon, after checking the alarm system that had just been installed in the Petrescus' new house, Lee took the boys down to the hardware store to get some supplies. They needed hooks and rope for hanging up the curtains, and Jamie bought a box of light bulbs in assorted colors, light sockets and brackets for mounting them on the ceiling beams in the garage, and some extension cords. When Lee went to get Jamie from the garage for dinner that evening, he saw flashes of different colors of light coming from the windows. He had to admit that it did look pretty eerie.

"I was just testing them to see what colors work the best," Jamie explained to Lee. "We'll have to have lights in the haunted house so that people can see, but they should be fairly dim, and it would be scarier if they were strange colors."

"That's a good idea," Lee said. "I can't wait to see what it looks like when it's done."

"If you take me to the electronics shop, I could do even better! I could get black lights and extension cords with switches on them so I can turn them on and off individually," Jamie said excitedly. "And some stuff for the sound effects. And maybe even a strobe light-!"

"Slow down," Lee said, laughing. "That sounds like a lot of stuff. I don't know if we'll have the money for everything. We can go to the store and see what things cost, okay?"

He wasn't sure if Jamie could pull off what he wanted to do or not, but he wanted to encourage his younger stepson in his interests.

Lee was happy that Jamie was eager to show off his creations to him. Of Amanda's two boys, Jamie had been the one who had really opposed Amanda's relationship with Lee. It had taken awhile for him to get used to Lee and for Lee to find some common ground with Jamie.

Philip was very much like Lee himself had been when he was young: action-oriented, always on the move, brash, out-spoken, a little hot-tempered, obvious interests in cars, sports, and girls. Jamie was different: quieter, more thoughtful. Philip blurted out everything, but It was sometimes difficult to read Jamie's moods. It was a mutual interest in photography that helped break the ice between them, and since then, Lee had taken pride in helping Jamie with various science projects. Jamie never ceased to amaze him with his creativity and technical knowledge.

"Actually, that's the kind of stuff that I want money for," Jamie said, talking about the lights, extension cords, and other electronics parts he wanted to buy. "Or maybe a ham radio. I haven't decided."

"I don't know how much you're going to earn off of the haunted house, and you'll have to share the earnings with whoever helps you," Lee cautioned. "It might be better not to count your chickens before they're hatched."

"I guess," Jamie said.

"Any idea what Philip wants money for?" Lee asked, probing for information.

Jamie snorted. "Kelly Sharp."

"Who?"

"She's in his history class. She's got a thing for guys who play football, and mom won't pay for him to buy equipment so he can join the team. She says that he already plays baseball, and she can't afford equipment for another sport."

Lee knew that Philip had expressed an interest in football when he'd suggested that he get involved in something to get his mind off of Linda. He also knew that Jamie was right that Amanda had restricted Philip to a single sport at school. It was partly because of the expense of buying extra equipment and partly because Philip wasn't the greatest student. The boy was smart, but he lacked patience and focus. Lee could relate. Amanda was afraid that adding extra sports would keep Philip from focusing on his schoolwork. She said that if he improved his grades this year, she might reconsider when he got into high school, provided that they could afford the equipment then.

Now, Lee knew that part of Philip's sagging history grade was due to him staring dreamily at some girl named Kelly instead of listening to his teacher. Lee wondered if Amanda knew.

Over dinner, they talked about going to the electronics shop. Philip wanted to go shopping for costumes and Halloween decorations, too. "I think I know what monsters we should have in the house, and I've got a list of things we need to buy-"

"Woah, hold it!" Lee said. "Not so fast. Have you talked about it with your friends yet?"

"Well, I told Mark and Andy about the haunted house, and Jamie said Tommy was interested."

"Tom," Jamie interrupted. "He likes people to call him Tom now."

"Why?" Amanda asked.

"He thinks he's too old to be called Tommy," Jamie explained. "He doesn't want to sound like a little kid."

"So, what did they all say?" Lee asked Philip.

"Mark and Andy want to help, but they have some things to do this weekend. They can come over on Tuesday after school to talk about it."

"That would be good because Tom says that he might be able to get some props from his aunt, and he's going to see her this weekend."

"His aunt?" Lee asked.

"Tommy-I mean, Tom's aunt works for the Arlington Community Theater," Amanda said.

"She might be able to loan him some costumes or something," Jamie said. "And he said that there's a skull and a cauldron in the prop room that he might be able to get."

"It would be nice if she's willing to lend them," Amanda said.

"Maybe you'd better see what your friends can contribute before you rush out and buy things," Lee said to Philip.

"But, they don't know what I want to do with the haunted house yet," Philip complained.

"And you don't know what they're willing to do with the haunted house yet," Lee said. "You've got a good start on the planning, but you have to see what your people can bring to it before you make the final decisions."

"Then, there's nothing to do over the weekend," Philip grumbled.

"Cheer up," Lee said, reaching over to give Philip's shoulder a squeeze. "There are weeks to Halloween. You'll be ready in plenty of time. Just take your time with it, and have fun thinking about the possibilities."

Deep down, Lee could relate to the way Philip was feeling. He always preferred the start of a mission to the planning beforehand, although he knew that proper planning was critical to success. The week kind of dragged for Lee workwise, and if he hadn't had the kids and their project to think about too, he would have been completely bored out of his skull.

Amanda thrived during the prep phase, getting the house ready for the Petrescus, who would be arriving on Wednesday at Dulles. She wanted the house looking homey and attractive as well as secure. She had some good ideas, too, about how the security system would function with children in the house and the things that a lively child might do to set it off by accident.

"Although she's not a young child," Amanda said. "She's old enough to be careful if things are explained to her properly."

Toward the end of the week, Amanda's energy seemed to wane. At first, Lee thought that she'd just been overdoing it in her enthusiasm to make the home welcoming for the Petrescus, but by the weekend, Amanda admitted that she'd been feeling sick.

"It's probably that virus that's been going around," Lee said sympathetically. "Billy told me that he had to replace a couple of guys on the Petrescus' security team because of it. You'd better take it easy this weekend. Dotty and I can keep an eye on the boys."

Amanda's illness was the fourth reason why things turned out the way they did.


	4. A Scare

**Chapter 4: A Scare**

On Monday, Amanda insisted on coming to work, although Lee thought that she should have stayed home another day or two. She said that she was feeling better than she had been, but her voice on the phone still sounded weak. She was just going to be a little late because she had to help the boys with something before school. Lee wished that he could persuade her to just take the day off and rest, but it was difficult to do that over the phone from his apartment. Besides, Billy had said that he wanted to talk to the two of them about the arrangements for the arrival of the Petrescus.

By then, the house was ready for the family, complete with the security system that would alert them if anyone broke into the house and which the family could use to summon help in a hurry if anything serious happened. There would be a security team checking in with the family regularly during the first few weeks that they were settling in. Later, as the family settled into their routine, they would only perform occasional checks to make sure that the family was still safe.

Anton Petrescu had enemies in the Romanian government who would love to either get revenge for his defection or to force him to return to Romania and spill his guts about the projects he'd worked on during his exile. These days, U.S. and Romanian relations were delicate, and Lee doubted whether any official agents of the Romanian government would make a move against the family. Still, better safe than sorry.

Since Amanda wasn't there yet, Billy and Lee started the briefing in the Q-Bureau without her.

"You and Amanda will meet the Petrescus at the gate," Billy said as they pored over the itinerary. "Johnson and Wheeler will follow you through the terminal to the parking garage. Carter and Lopez will be stationed in the garage and will follow you out in their car. Fielder and Benson will be at the house when you arrive."

"You had to put Fielder on this?" Lee groaned.

"We had to have someone replace Chang. He's out with the flu, too."

Lee would have argued more, but Amanda came in just then. She still looked awfully pale.

"Are you okay, Amanda?" Billy asked, getting up.

"I'll be alright, sir," Amanda said. Her voice was a little weak.

"You don't seem very well," Billy said gently. "Maybe you'd better spend the rest of the day at home."

"I don't want to miss the briefing," Amanda said. She seemed to be swaying a little on her feet.

Billy frowned at her worriedly. "I've started to brief Lee. Perhaps he can give you a ride home, and the two of you can talk in the car."

"I think that's a good idea," Lee said. "We have the itinerary, and we can-"

Amanda fainted right in front of the two surprised men.

SMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMK

Lee waited in the Agency infirmary for the doctor to clear Amanda to go home. After she had fainted in the Q-Bureau, Lee had carried her to the infirmary and refused to let her go anywhere until the doctor said it was alright. By that point, Amanda was awake and protesting.

"I'll be okay," she murmured feebly. "I just didn't eat anything this morning."

"Why didn't you eat anything this morning?" Lee asked, still carrying her to the infirmary with Billy following closely.

"I just . . . didn't feel like I could handle it," Amanda mumbled.

"Then, you were too sick to come to work," Lee said. "I told you . . ."

There was little use in "I-told-you-so," but Lee always hated it when Amanda's sense of responsibility overcame her common sense. She should have spent the day at home, resting. The Petrescus weren't coming until Wednesday, and he could have briefed her at home.

"I think it's just the flu," Lee said to Billy while they waited for the doctor's diagnosis. It was partly to reassure him and partly to reassure himself that Amanda would be okay. "She's been feeling sick lately, and she was feeling pretty bad this weekend. She thought that she'd be better today but . . ."

Lee trailed off when he saw the look that Billy was giving him. It was speculative. And serious. More serious than any other look he could remember from Billy, and that was saying something.

"Lee," Billy said in a low voice, "before the doctor comes back, there's something I need to know, and I want a straight answer from you. Is it possible that Amanda is pregnant?"

Lee stared at his superior in shock. He struggled to find something to say. "Why . . . ? I mean . . ."

"You and I both know why," Billy said shortly. He leaned toward Lee and hissed, "You and Amanda are married. You've been married since last February. Never mind how I know, I just do! Now, Amanda's symptoms might be flu, but they can also be part of morning sickness. Wasn't she having weird food cravings last week? Peanut butter and pickles?"

"Lots of people like peanut butter and pickles," Lee said, glossing over the marriage part for the moment. "I don't know why. If you think Amanda's eating habits are weird, you should see what her mother-"

"We don't have time for this, Lee," Billy interrupted. "If she's pregnant, you're the father. Is it possible?"

Lee's head buzzed. Amanda . . . pregnant . . . father. Pregnant? They'd been together less often than Lee would have liked, but they'd been careful. Most of the time.

"Never mind," Billy said, seeing the look of silent panic on Lee's face. "I know. It's possible. Look, I don't know what the doctor will say. He might suggest the possibility, or he might say it's just the flu. But, whatever he says, make sure Amanda gets tested. You can do it quietly, away from the Agency. But, I'll want to know the results. We'll talk later."

The doctor was approaching. Lee tried to put on his best poker face. He knew he was failing. He just hoped that the worried look on his face would be attributed to concern for his partner. After all, that was at the heart of it.

"How is she?" Billy asked.

"She'll be alright," the doctor said. "It looks like she has the stomach virus that's been going around lately. Three people in Accounting and two in Crypto already have it, besides the ones from Field Section. I sent Jenkins home yesterday because of it. It lasts about seven to ten days, so she's about halfway through it, judging from when she first started feeling ill. I think that she'll be feeling better by the end of the week. She needs rest, and she should be drinking more water. She's a little dehydrated."

Billy nodded. "Thank you, doctor." Turning to Lee he said, "I'm giving Amanda the rest of the week off. That means that you'll have to meet the Petrescus alone on Wednesday. Amanda's very good at helping people to settle in, but most of the work has already been done. They have their furniture, and the house is stocked with food. There won't be much to do until next Monday, when the Petrescu girl starts school and Amanda volunteered to give Mrs. Petrescu a tour of the area. You can brief the Petrescus about the security arrangements on Wednesday, and that gives them a few days to themselves at home. Speaking of which, I'm giving you some time off, too, before you get sick."

"I'm okay, Billy," Lee said automatically.

"You might as well take a couple of days," Billy said. "You can review the files on Anton Petrescu and his family from home and check in with the security team briefly on the weekend. When Amanda's feeling a little better, you can brief her on the other little assignment she has." Another meaningful look. "For now, you'd better take her home and make sure she has someone to stay with her."

"Right," Lee said.

Amanda. Pregnant? It was the flu. It must be the flu. The doctor said so. Well, he's said a "virus," but that meant the flu. He didn't say anything about pregnancy. Pregnant. Baby. Father.

Considering how sick Amanda was and how preoccupied Lee was, it was a probably a miracle that they managed to get to Amanda's without an accident.


	5. A Mother's Instincts

**Chapter 5: A Mother's Instincts**

"She couldn't be," Lee was still saying to himself on Tuesday morning.

He hadn't discussed what Billy said with Amanda yet. On Monday, she was too ill and he was too much in shock at the idea of her being pregnant to say anything. Neither one of them was really in a fit state to discuss it.

When Lee had gotten back to his apartment and calmed down a little, he also started wondering how Billy knew about the marriage. They'd been so careful, or so Lee had thought. But, Billy not only knew that they were married but when it happened. There was no more denying it, as far as Billy was concerned. Who else knew?

Since he was excused from work, Lee went to Amanda's house the next morning after the kids left for school to see how she was doing. Her mother answered the door.

"Shouldn't you be at work, Lee?" Dotty asked when she let him in.

"I'm taking some time off," Lee said casually. "It seems like everyone's come down with same virus Amanda has, so there isn't much going on at work."

He looked Dotty right in the eye as he spoke and wondered silently whether she had any idea about the marriage.

"These things can spread so easily," Dotty said, shaking her head. "I've been cleaning like crazy around here, and Amanda's been trying to stay away from the boys as much as possible so they don't get it. But, you never know. Some people just have better immune systems than others. And, I've been making them take vitamin C. Have you been taking vitamin C?"

"Not really," Lee admitted.

"Well, you should. I think it's sweet that you came here to see Amanda when she's not feeling well, but you need to take care of yourself, too. I can give you some vitamin C. We have plenty."

"Oh, that's alright," Lee said.

"It's no trouble at all," Dotty said, giving him a capsule from a little brown bottle. "I'll get you some water. The last thing we need is for you to get sick."

Lee ended up taking the vitamin just to satisfy Dotty.

"That's better," Dotty said. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so they say, and if you're going to be spending time with Amanda, you'd better be prepared."

Lee didn't feel at all prepared. Not for the subject they had to discuss.

Dotty said, "Amanda's upstairs in bed. Would you take this cup of tea up to her?"

"Sure," Lee said, taking the teacup from Dotty.

He was about halfway up the stairs before Dotty said, "You didn't ask, but her room is the last door on the left."

Lee turned and saw Dotty giving him a wry smile. He just smiled back. It was better just to say nothing. Dotty had once found a sock of his mixed in with the family's laundry. It wasn't enough to prove anything, but it was enough to give her suspicions. They'd been fortunate that it was Amanda who had caught the boxers he'd left behind.

Amanda was sitting up in bed, surrounded by books, magazines, and pieces of the newspaper. She wasn't reading any of them. She was just staring out the window.

"Lee?" she said in surprise when he came in. "What are you doing here?"

"Billy gave me some time off," he said, perching on the side of the bed. "Care for some tea?"

"Okay," Amanda said. "Thank you. I'm feeling better than I did the other day, really. I've been pretty bored in here by myself. Mother won't let me do anything. She insists that I should just rest."

"Well, she's right. You should rest."

"Maybe I did overdo it a little the other day," Amanda admitted. "I've never fainted like that before."

"Never?" Lee asked, trying hard to think of how to bring up the delicate topic they had to discuss. "Not even when you were pregnant with the boys?"

"No," Amanda said, taking a sip of the tea. "Of course, I had-" She stopped suddenly and stared at Lee. "Lee, are you worried that I might be . . . ?"

"Are you?" Lee asked anxiously.

Amanda laughed.

"Does that mean you're not?" Lee asked, still anxious.

"No, of course not!" Amanda said, surprised.

"Is there any chance that you might be pregnant?"

"Well, you'd know that as well as I would," Amanda said jokingly.

"So, there might be a chance?"

"No," Amanda said seriously. "Really, I'm not pregnant. You're really worried about this, aren't you?"

"This is serious, Amanda. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Are you really sure?"

"I'm really sure!"

Lee sighed. Even he wasn't sure if it was a sigh of relief or not.

"Honestly, Lee, this is just the flu. Being pregnant feels very different. At least, it always has for me. I should know, I've done it twice!"

She was sure, but Lee still wasn't. Amanda wasn't as young as she'd been when she had the boys. Maybe it felt different in her 30s than in her 20s. There was only one way to know . . . and Billy was waiting for the answer.

"Lee," Amanda asked suddenly, "why did Billy give you time off?" She knew as well as he did that didn't happen very often.

Lee took Amanda's hands in his and said, "This is going to come as a shock, but I have to tell you . . . Billy knows."

"Billy knows what?" Amanda asked, eyes wide.

"About us," Lee said softly, glancing at the door to make sure that Amanda's mother wasn't listening. "He knows that we're married. He told me so himself."

"How does he know?" Amanda whispered.

"I don't know. He didn't say. But, when you fainted, and he heard that you've been sick lately, he asked me if you could be pregnant."

"So, that's why you were so worried," Amanda said softly.

"Yeah."

"But, I'm not," Amanda said. "I'm very sure of that. This feels like the flu, not pregnancy."

"Billy says he wants you to get tested anyway. He wants to know the results."

Lee watched as Amanda digested this.

"What's he going to do?" she finally asked. "Is he going to tell anyone?"

"I don't know." Lee ran a hand through his hair. "I don't think so. If he wanted us disciplined for keeping our marriage a secret, he could have done it already. Right now, I think he's just worried about your health. If you turn out to be pregnant, he'll pull you from the field."

"I'm not pregnant. Really, I'm not."

Lee squeezed her hand. "Whatever happens, things will be okay. You tell your mother that I've been worrying about you and this virus and insisted that you see a doctor. Maybe I'll tell her myself. She'll think it's sweet for me to be concerned."

"It is." Amanda smiled.

Lee smiled for first time since Monday.

"Try to get an appointment for Thursday, if you can," Lee said. "I have to go pick up the Petrescus tomorrow, but I want to go to your appointment. I'll drive you. I don't really trust your mother's driving, and I don't want her knowing about the test."

"I don't really need a doctor's appointment for a pregnancy test," Amanda said. "There are tests for women to take at home. You can get the results in minutes. They sell them at the drug store."

"Good," Lee said. "That would be more private. I can pick one up for you. You're not well enough to go out, and we don't want any of your PTA friends seeing you picking up a pregnancy test."

"Aren't you worried someone might see you?" Amanda asked.

"Most of the people I know are in Georgetown," Lee said. "If I get it somewhere around here or maybe another neighborhood over, no one will know."

"Lee?" Amanda asked, hesitating. "Are you . . . I mean . . . would you be upset if I did turn out to be pregnant?"

"Do you think you might be?" Lee asked worriedly.

"No, but I mean . . . What if I did get pregnant? You know, eventually. I mean, what would we do?" Amanda bit her lip.

Lee didn't know quite how to answer that question. He'd been wondering the same thing ever since Billy had raised the possibility that Amanda might be pregnant. Baby. Father. He'd thought about it so much that he could almost see a pudgy little baby with tiny hands and big brown eyes like her mother's. He wasn't sure why he'd pictured a little girl, but that's what he was thinking of. If there was a baby. But, there wasn't. Probably not.

"Right now, a lot depends on what Billy says," Lee said. "If it's impossible to keep our marriage a secret . . . we might both have to leave the Agency. They won't let married agents be partners."

"I didn't think so," Amanda said sadly.

"But, it might not come to that, at least not yet," Lee reassured her.

"But, if we have a baby . . ." Amanda prompted him.

"Then, we'll take care of it. Him. Her. Whoever it is." Lee thought that little ramble sounded like one of Amanda's. After all these years, she was rubbing off on him. "We'll take care of our family. I promise. I love you."

"I love you, too." Amanda said. Tears sparkled at the corners of her eyes. He kissed her.

Lee insisted that he'd get the home pregnancy test for Amanda to use on Thursday. He would have to come by anyway to let her know how things went when he picked up the Petrescus. For today, he just wanted her to rest.

"Billy and I have already discussed the security detail. You should be feeling better by the weekend, and you can meet the Petrescus then."

Amanda added, "By then, the test will be off our minds."

"Right," Lee said. He had to admit that he really wouldn't be able to think of much else until he knew for certain that Amanda wasn't pregnant.


	6. A Witch, A Monster, and a Plan

**Chapter 6: A Witch, A Monster, and A Plan**

But, of course, Amanda wasn't pregnant. Amanda was sure, so Lee was sure. Pretty sure.

"What do you think, Lee?" Jamie asked.

"What?" Lee didn't want to tell the boys what he was thinking just then.

"Should we have La Llorona, the banshee, or the witch in the haunted house?" Jamie asked. "They sound a lot alike."

They were sitting on folding chairs in the garage with the boys' friends, Mark and Andy. They were expecting a third friend, Tom, later. Philip and Jamie had recruited them to help with the haunted house, and they were all pretty eager to join in.

Lee had stayed with Amanda most of the morning, then he had gone home for lunch and to study the information for their assignment with the Petrescus and to make a few calls to the Agency. Later that afternoon, Lee had returned to Amanda's house to check on her. He didn't bring the pregnancy test because they had already agreed to do it on Thursday. Amanda's mother had somewhere to be that day anyway, so no one else would be home, and they could conduct the test privately. If he brought it too early, Dotty might spot it by accident.

When Lee got back to the house, he learned that the boys had invited some friends over to talk about the haunted house project. With Amanda sick, he'd volunteered to help the boys, and Philip and Jamie had accepted more eagerly than he'd even expected.

It turned out that Philip and Jamie's friends were the same boys Lee remembered meeting a couple of Halloweens ago. Philip had managed to get tangled up in an errand that Amanda was running for the Agency because he had decided that one of their neighbors, the one who was actually a Russian agent, might be a vampire. He had dragged their friends along on his little vampire-hunting expedition on Halloween night.

Fortunately, Lee had been disguised as a policeman that night, and Mark and Andy didn't recognize him now. He hoped that the same would be true of Tom, the boy who was coming later. When Lee had last seen Tommy (as he was called then), he was the chubby boy who had stayed behind at Amanda's house, eating all the Halloween treats and watching monster movies while all the other boys were on their vampire hunt. It had been a pretty confusing evening, and Tommy had only seen Lee briefly toward the end of it, when he'd ordered the boys to clean up their mess.

"Why are we even thinking about those?" Mark complained about the banshee and witch ideas. "We don't even have any girls to play them."

One of the regrets Lee had about the boys bringing their friends in on the haunted house project was that Philip and Jamie spent more time talking things over with them than with him. It gave him more time to think about things he didn't want to think about.

"Think about it," Philip said. He held up his hands like he was setting the scene before them. "Long flowing gowns, eerie wailing. Perfect haunted house stuff!"

"I'm not dressing up as a girl, even an undead one!" Mark declared.

"Who asked you to?" Philip asked.

"Nobody yet, but I'm still saying I'm not going to!"

On the other hand, the boys' friends weren't bad, Lee thought. Mark apparently knew how insistent Philip could be when he wanted something. But, Lee doubted that Mark really needed to worry.

"Maybe we could find some girls," Philip said. His tone was casual, as if he really didn't care one way or the other whether they did or not. Lee was instantly suspicious.

Had Philip been planning this all along, to invite some girl, probably the Kelly Sharp that Jamie was talking about, to join the haunted house? Was that even more of a motive for him than making money off it? Of course, if Philip had a new little girlfriend, there would be no worries about him being interested in young Antonia Petrescu. That would be one less thing for Lee to worry about.

"Tom said something about the witch idea when I talked to him on the phone the other night," Jamie said. "He says he knows someone who can play a witch. That's why he's not here yet. He had to wait for her softball practice to end."

"Softball?" Philip frowned, his brow furrowing slightly.

Lee didn't know what softball had to do with it, but he thought he knew why Philip was concerned. Whoever Tom was bringing, it might interfere with Philip's plans to include his new girlfriend.

"Well, between La Llorona, the banshee, and the witch," Lee said, speaking up for the first time in the last half hour, "La Llorona and the banshee are the most alike. They both wear long gowns and wail a lot. You could combine them both into one character and call her, 'The Wailing Woman' or something like that. Witches are a little different, so you can have one of those too, if you want."

"'The Wailing Woman,'" Jamie said thoughtfully. "I like that."

Philip's frown didn't change. He was still worried about something.

"I'm still not wearing a dress," Mark stated flatly.

"I don't think you'll have to worry about that," Jamie said.

There was a knock at the side door.

"I'll get it," Jamie said. "It must be Tom."

Philip muttered, "I hope he didn't bring . . ." When Philip saw the two kids who entered the garage, he put his head in his hands and said, "He did!"

Lee recognized the stocky boy as the couch potato from Philip and Jamie's Halloween party. The kid wasn't quite as pudgy as he'd been back then, but his build suggested that he still liked to eat. Tom was carrying a large, overstuffed duffle that kind of caught on the edge of the door as he came in. He staggered a little under his unwieldy load.

With Tom was a girl who looked like she might be a couple years younger than he was. She wore jeans and an oversized red sweater that looked like it was probably a hand-me-down from her older brother. She was also wearing a blue baseball cap and dirty tennis shoes. Her straw-colored hair was tied in a single braid down her back, and she was chewing gum. She blew a big, purple bubble. Until that moment, Lee hadn't been aware that bubble gum came in purple.

Philip groaned loudly, not even trying to hide his irritation. "You brought Al!" he said accusingly to Tom.

"Al?" Lee asked the other boys.

"Alice," Andy said helpfully.

"She's Tom's sister," Mark explained in a low voice. "She's also a pest."

Alice, otherwise known as 'Al,' was looking around the garage critically. She said, "This barn doesn't look very haunted yet."

"It's a haunted _house_ , and we're in the planning phase," Philip said tightly. To Tom, he said, "What did you bring her for?"

"Philip, don't be rude," Lee said. He was surprised at how easily he said it. It was almost automatic. And very Amanda-ish.

Philip looked surprised, too, hearing words his mother would have said coming out of Lee's mouth.

"Who are you?" Tom asked, looking at Lee curiously. Neither he nor his sister seemed fazed by Philip's comments, and Lee was relieved that Tom didn't recognize him.

"This is Lee, Mom's boyfriend," Jamie said. "He's helping us put the haunted house together."

"Oh, nice to meet you," Tom said, putting out his hand for Lee to shake.

Lee shook hands with both Tom and Alice.

To Philip, Tom said, "If we're going to have witches and banshees in here, we'll need girls to play 'em. Our aunt works for the Arlington Community Theater, and we've both been in plays there. Al's a pretty good actress, and our aunt let us borrow a bunch of props and costume pieces."

Philip stared disapprovingly at Alice as she calmly blew another bubble. "I guess she could play a witch," he grumbled.

"Be a gentleman," Lee said softly in Philip's ear. " _Ask_ her if she'd like to play a witch."

Philip gave Lee a resigned look and reluctantly asked, "Would you like to be a witch, Al?"

"I get to use some of the fake blood, right?" Alice asked around her wad of gum.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lee saw Mark, Andy, and Jamie nudging each other and trying to smother laughs. Philip gave Lee an I-told-you-so look.

"Do you have any fake blood?" Lee asked the girl politely.

"We know how to make it," Tom said proudly. "Our aunt gave us her recipe. It's just dish soap, cornstarch, and food coloring."

Some families handed down recipes for cookies and some handed down recipes for fake blood. If Lee had known that years ago, he wouldn't have made so many housewife jokes when he first met Amanda. The kids' aunt must be really interesting.

"Sounds simple enough," Lee said. "It won't stain the costumes?" The dye packs they sometimes used at the Agency stained like crazy. He'd ruined at least four shirts because of those.

"Nope," Tom said. "That's why you use dish soap for the base. It's got some thickness to it, and it washes right out."

The fake blood idea seemed to intrigue Philip, but he was still giving Alice suspicious looks.

"As long as it doesn't stain, I think that would be okay," Lee said. "Do you have a witch costume, Alice?" He didn't like to call her 'Al,' like the boys did.

"I have a black dress that will work," Alice said. "And makeup and a glow-in-the-dark bone necklace."

"You have a dress?" Philip asked skeptically.

Before Lee could reprimand Philip, Jamie asked, "Bone necklace? Why would a witch wear bones?"

"They're the bones of children I've eaten."

Now, she had the boys' attention.

"Gnarly!" Andy said, grinning.

"That's why I should have some blood on me," Alice explained logically. "The bones glow because I'm magical, and they're haunted. It will look eerie in a darkened room."

Lee wasn't sure why Philip didn't like Alice or why Mark said she was a pest. She might not be quite the "sugar and spice and everything nice" kind of girl, but she was . . . interesting. She seemed to have spirit and a big imagination.

"It won't be completely dark," Jamie said, getting into the technical aspects of the house. "I'm rigging up a lighting system with colored lights. But, if you're under a black light, it will give anything glow-in-the-dark a charge and make it glow brighter. Neon colors will glow, too."

"I don't know . . ." Philip said, still eyeing Alice uneasily.

"You want this haunted house to be scary right?" Alice said to Philip. "I could try to lure kids into my cauldron by promising them candy."

"We didn't bring the cauldron with us this time because it's kind of big," Tom said, "but our aunt says she can bring it by later."

"And the cauldron will be surrounded by the skulls and bones of my earlier victims," Alice said dreamily. She held up her hands as if setting the scene before them, just like Philip had done earlier. Unlike Philip, she ended it by blowing another purple bubble.

"Aunt Sue only has one skull you can use," Tom pointed out. "I've got it in here somewhere." He put the duffle bag down and started rummaging through it.

"So, do I have the part?" Alice asked. She gave Philip a challenging look. The girl had some guts. Definitely spirited.

Philip didn't say anything. He didn't seem to know what to say.

Lee decided to be democratic about it. "What do you guys think?" he asked Jamie, Mark, and Andy.

"Sounds alright to me," Jamie said. He glanced cautiously at Philip. "I'm still going to have to get a black light bulb. Maybe a couple."

Lee looked at Andy.

"Okay," Andy said with a shrug.

"I'm sure not wearing a dress," Mark said as if that settled everything.

"Philip?" Lee asked gently.

With everyone else agreeing, what could Philip say?

"Fine," he said unenthusiastically. "You're in."

"With an equal cut of the profits?" Alice asked.

A pair of sharp blue eyes peered out from under that baseball cap. Alice's reasons for wanting to participate were clear.

"Sure," Philip said. With Lee there, he'd have to give her a fair deal.

"Good," Alice said. She nodded for emphasis.

Lee wondered what she was going to do with her share of the money. Softball equipment? More bubble gum?

Philip wasn't happy.

"Now that that's settled," Lee said, trying to move things along, "what parts will the rest of you be playing?"

Philip took a seat as far away from Alice as he could get, but as the others started looking through the props and costume pieces in Tom's bag, discussing the costumes they already had at home, and talking about the parts they wanted to play, he started to relax again.

Since the haunted house was Philip's idea and was taking place in his garage (or his family's, anyway), he appointed himself the tour guide for the groups going through the haunted house, "Your Guide to the Unknown" as he put it.

The others took some of Lee's monster suggestions and came up with some of their own. Mark loved the Skinwalker/werewolf idea, and he said he could borrow the werewolf costume that his brother wore last year. Alice said that she had more glow-in-the-dark plastic bones, like the ones she had in the necklace she was going to wear and that she could give some to Mark, too.

"The evil Skinwalker casts his dark magic with the bones of the children who have made my evening meal!" Alice cackled.

She's going to make a great witch, Lee thought. Very dramatic.

"We don't want to make this too scary for the little kids," Philip said, throwing a damper on everyone's enthusiasm. If the idea had come from anyone other than Alice, he probably would have said it was great.

"We don't have to say all that to the younger kids," Jamie reminded him. "We said so before. But, it would be great stuff for the older ones."

"I can pull extra bones out of my cauldron and give them to you," Alice said helpfully to Mark. "I bought a whole bag of them at the costume shop."

"Cool!" Mark said.

Philip frowned at Mark's enthusiasm.

"So, the witch and the werewolf, er, Skinwalker can be together in one room of the haunted house," Tom said. "I have a great idea for another room of the house."

He pulled a white lab coat and a wild wig out of his duffle bag.

"See? I'm a mad scientist!" Tom said. "One room of the haunted house can be my lab. I've got some stuff in here that would be good for a mad scientist's lab, and my aunt might let us have some more stuff from-Oh, there's the skull I was looking for!"

"Do you think Aunt Sue will let me paint it glow-in-the-dark to match the rest of the bones?" Alice asked.

Philip brightened a little at Tom's suggestion. "That would be cool!" he said, ignoring Alice. "And, Andy can play the monster the mad scientist is making. He could be lying on a table and jump up to scare people when they pass by."

Andy frowned. He'd been looking at the list of suggestions that Jamie had written down.

"I kind of like the idea of being a headless man," Andy said.

"But we need a monster for the mad scientist, and you're the only one who's left," Philip said. "Unless Jamie wants to do it."

Jamie shook his head. He was busy scribbling notes about the rooms of the haunted house. "I'm going to be too busy with the lighting system and special effects to dress up and play anything."

"Oh, come on!" Philip said. "The lighting systems aren't that important."

"Yes, they are!" Jamie snapped. "Lighting helps set the mood! And we'll need sound effects, too!"

"That can just be a tape recorder!" Philip said. "You're getting too hung up on your inventions."

Jamie looked like he was going to yell at Philip, and Lee was about to tell them to calm down when Tom spoke up, saying, "Jamie's right, Philip. Lighting is important, and you can't leave the sound effects just to a tape recorder. They have to be appropriate to the rooms in the haunted house, so the sounds will have to change as people walk through it. A tape recorder can't watch what's happening and play the right sounds at the right moment. If Jamie hangs back somewhere and keeps an eye on where people are in the haunted house, he can trigger lights and sounds to go on and off at just the right time when people are moving between rooms."

It was a logical argument.

"I'm going to hang out in the loft," Jamie said, pointing to the storage area above.

"You can't see what's happening from the loft," Philip said.

"Yes, you can. Remember the trap door?"

"But we need a monster!" Philip argued.

"Special effects are important!" Jamie retorted. "Tom agrees with me!"

"I don't care!" Philip said.

"Hold it!" Lee interrupted. "Jamie's right."

"Lee!" Philip said.

"And so are you," Lee said calmly. "Both of you are right. But, Jamie, do you promise that if we let you manage the special effects from the loft that you'll be very careful not to fall from the trap door?"

"It's not big enough to accidentally fall through," Jamie said, surprised. "Besides, I'll be sitting next to it, not walking over it."

"I understand," Lee said, "but I know that your mother worries about it. So, I don't know if she'll let you use it like that unless you promise to be careful."

"I'll be careful," Jamie promised.

"Okay," Lee said. "I'll talk to your mom, and if she agrees, we'll do it."

"What about the monster?" Philip asked.

"If your mom thinks the loft is too dangerous for Jamie, you might be able to persuade him to be the monster, or maybe he'll find some other way to control the special effects. But, if he really doesn't want to be the monster, you'll have to get someone else to do it or make a dummy monster."

"A dummy monster wouldn't be the same. It couldn't move."

Philip looked at Andy. Andy looked torn. The kid had his heart set on being the headless man.

In a flash of inspiration, Lee said, "You know, the monster can be headless."

"A headless monster?" Philip asked. "A mad scientist's monster is more like Frankenstein than the headless horseman."

"It could be if he's not done making it."

Tom's eyes lit up. "Yeah! It would be perfect. I could be just about to put the head on the monster, when suddenly he sits up all on his own and gets off the table!"

"That could work," Philip said slowly. "What would you use for the head?"

"We could see if Aunt Sue has a good prop, or we could make one," Tom said.

"We made things out of papier-mâché in the art class I took last summer," Alice said. "It's not too hard."

"Okay, guys," Jamie said, finishing his scribbling. "How does this look?"

He'd made some additions to the map Philip had drawn earlier with the two rectangular rooms in the middle and a hallway leading off of each end, one for people to enter and one for them to leave. There were now notes about what was to be in each room and the lighting he would use for each.

"The first hallway is to keep people from seeing the main rooms right away, and the second one is so they have something to walk through as they leave so the haunted house feels bigger," Jamie explained. "Philip thought that up."

"It's good, but make the inner rooms triangles instead of rectangles," Tom said.

"Why?" Philip asked.

"It's a theatrical trick," Tom said. "People expect rooms to have ninety-degree angles in the corners, and it makes them feel weird when they don't. It will throw people off and make the place seem more eerie. If we do it right, they won't even be able to see the whole room before they enter, so we can surprise them with something scary off to the side."

"Like this?" Jamie drew a diagonal line across the middle of the middle of the map.

"That's it!" Tom said.

By the time the other kids had to go home, everyone seemed satisfied that they had a good plan for the haunted house. Everyone but Philip.

"Why so glum?" Lee asked him when the others left.

Philip just shrugged and asked his grandmother what they were doing for dinner.


	7. New Neighbors

**Chapter 7: New Neighbors**

The arrival of the Petrescus went pretty smoothly. Wonder of wonders, the plane was on time. That almost never happened. All of the Agency's security personnel were in place, and Lee was ready to greet the family as they got off the plane. The only thing missing was Amanda, which made Lee feel strange and a little uneasy even though everything else was going perfectly.

Lee recognized the family immediately, thanks to the Agency's pictures. Anton Petrescu was a thin man with glasses, a little shorter than Lee, with darker hair. He held a briefcase in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He looked so much like a typical businessman that none of the other travelers gave him a second look. His wife, Doina, also had dark hair and wore a pretty floral dress. She had a cloth bag in another floral pattern that didn't match, and she was holding her daughter's hand. The daughter, Antonia, looked very much like her mother with the same dark hair and dark eyes. She wore a purple sweater with shiny square-shaped buttons and a matching skirt. She had a backpack with her in rainbow colors with hearts and white kittens on it. Thanks to training Amanda had given him in suburban consumerism, Lee recognized it as a Lisa Frank backpack, a brand popular among girls her age. In spite of the rainbow hearts and cute kittens on her bag, the young girl wore a serious expression as she and her family looked around for their escort.

"Good morning, Mr. Petrescu," Lee said as he approached them. "Welcome to Washington. I'm Lee Stetson. I'm here to give you a ride to your new house."

"And what do your friends call you?" Anton Petrescu asked, looking Lee up and down. He spoke with a soft Romanian accent.

"Scarecrow." That was the sign for the Petrescus to know that they had met the right escort.

The family relaxed visibly at the name, and Lee led them through the terminal to the baggage claim to get the rest of their luggage. As arranged, two more agents, Johnson and Wheeler, followed at a discreet distance, keeping an eye on things.

At the baggage carousel, the family pointed out their suitcases, and Lee helped to collect them. Antonia tried to pick up her pink suitcase herself although she only managed to get it about halfway off the carousel because of the weight.

"Let me get that for you," Lee said, taking it from her. She gave him a small smile but said nothing.

Her father, meanwhile, grabbed for a suitcase that Lee had missed.

"Oof!" Anton accidentally bumped into a man walking behind him as he turned with it, knocking over the briefcase he had set down beside him.

The stranger rubbed his leg where it was hit by the swinging suitcase and reached down to help Anton pick up the briefcase. As he did so, both men suddenly paused and looked at each other. The look they exchanged was one of astonishment.

"Are you alright?" Lee asked, coming over to check on Anton and get a better look at the stranger.

The stranger immediately pulled the hat he wore down over his eyes, turned and disappeared into the crowd. Lee looked toward their escort and signaled for them to check the man out. Johnson took off in pursuit of the man while Wheeler kept his eyes on Lee and the family.

"Who was that?" Lee asked Anton. "Was it someone you know?"

"I-" Anton paused. "I don't know. I just bumped into him."

"You seemed to recognize him," Lee pressed.

"He looked familiar at first," Anton said. "But, I think I was mistaken."

"Who did he look like?" Lee asked.

"Nobody." Anton shook his head. "I thought for a moment that I knew him, but I was wrong."

Lee's sense of uneasiness grew, but that was all he was able to get out of Anton. Johnson reappeared and shook his head at Lee, shrugging. He had lost the stranger somewhere in the crowd. Now, Lee was very uneasy.

"Let's finish getting the bags," Lee said.

He hurried the family out to the car that the Agency provided for him to take the Petrescus to their new house. His own car was both too conspicuous and not big enough for four people. Anton helped him load the family's suitcases into the trunk, and then they drove out of the parking garage.

Lee took extra time getting to Amanda's neighborhood, going out of his way to drive around other surrounding neighborhoods, telling agents Carter and Lopez by radio to expect that and to watch for any followers. The car containing agents Carter and Lopez followed them, but Lee didn't see any signs of other pursuing cars. If there were any, he had to depend on Carter and Lopez to spot them and call in reinforcements to help deal with them. Carter and Lopez didn't report seeing anything unusual.

Since Anton seemed reluctant to talk about the man he saw in the airport, Lee instead talked to the family about the story they would have to tell their new neighbors, since they couldn't talk about Anton's real profession.

"Technical advisor to a documentary film company?" Anton asked with a chuckle. "Very interesting. What kind of documentary are we making?"

"Since you'll be living here for the long term, you can say you're working on various projects. If anyone asks you what you're working on currently, just say it's about electricity."

"What about electricity?"

"All about it. It's all about electricity. Be very vague and general."

Anton chuckled. "A documentary all about electricity. Next, I suppose it will be a documentary all about chemistry. You know, each of those topics could take an entire series of documentaries."

"You could tell people that's exactly what you're working on," Lee said. "They'll never know the difference."

"No one ever sees the films your 'IFF' creates?"

"We make a few real films that are shown late at night on public television," Lee said. "We do enough to maintain our credibility, but we don't want to risk getting too much attention."

"I see."

"I understand that our film about crop rotation has actually been purchased by a number of schools. Poor kids."

Anton chuckled again, and Lee checked his rearview mirror. So far, so good. No followers except for the one they expected.

"I saw a documentary about Nikola Tesla in my school in California," Antonia said suddenly. "They got a lot of things wrong."

Lee was surprised. Partly because the girl hadn't said anything up to now and partly because there was no trace of accent in her voice like there was in her parents'. Of course, she'd been very young when she'd come to this country.

"What did they get wrong?" Lee asked conversationally as he steered them toward the neighborhood where they would live, just down the street from Amanda. He was satisfied that the mysterious man from the airport wasn't following them.

"They said that he was 30 when he came to the United States, but he wasn't. He was 28," the girl replied.

"Oh," Lee said.

They were getting close to the house now. He hoped Amanda was still resting at home. She would probably be tempted to come over and check on things, but he'd told her that she should just stay home until she was better.

"Tesla worked with Edison," Antonia continued, "but they parted ways because they couldn't see eye to eye on things. I think Tesla didn't get as much credit as he deserved because other inventors were better businessmen. But, being a good businessman doesn't make someone a better inventor."

"Most little girls idolize ballerinas or actresses or singers," Anton said with yet another chuckle. The man seemed to chuckle a lot. "My little girl idolizes inventors."

"That's not a bad thing," Lee said.

Briefly, he wondered what his little girl might be interested in. If he had one. Then, he forced himself to return to the present.

"Here we are," Lee said, turning into the driveway.

Carter and Lopez parked along the curb. Lee got out to talk to them and Fred Fielder. Carter and Lopez assured him that no one had followed them from the airport, and Fielder said that everything was quiet around the house, no visitors, not even Amanda.

Reassured that everything was alright, Lee got the family inside and started acquainting them with the house and the security systems in place. He made sure that they understood what would set off an alarm and how to reset the system with a code number in case of a mistake. He also told them about the security teams watching the house and how to alert them if they needed help.

Anton and Doina thanked him and immediately set about getting unpacked. Doina complimented the lovely and comfortable furnishings that Amanda had picked out.

"My partner is responsible for that," Lee said. "I'm sure she'll be pleased that you like them. Unfortunately, she's not feeling well today. You'll see her on Saturday. She lives very close with her mother and two kids, so you'll be seeing a lot of her."

"Kids?" Antonia asked, interested.

"She has two sons," Lee explained. He was relieved that Antonia didn't seem too excited at the idea of meeting boys. "But, I'm sure that there are plenty of other girls in the area, too."

"You'll make new friends when you start going to school," her mother said reassuringly. "Just remember to tell them the cover story that Mr. Stetson has given us for your father. Say that he works for a documentary film company."

"I know," Antonia said, sounding annoyed. "I heard."

"It's very important that you not talk about your father's real work in public," her mother emphasized.

"We never talk about his real work at home, either," Antonia pointed out.

"You know that your father's work is secret and that he has enemies."

"I know." Antonia sounded resigned. Lee had the feeling that she had heard this all many times before.

"Why don't you go and unpack now?" Doina said to Antonia.

Antonia nodded silently. Lee watched as she walked into the bedroom that was going to be her new room. Amanda had chosen a pretty quilted bedspread for her. There was a pretty white bureau and a small vanity table with a tri-fold mirror that matched. Instead of opening up her suitcase and pulling out clothes or brushing her pretty hair at the vanity table, Antonia Petrescu just plunked her kitty backpack on the bed and sat down on the bedspread, looking around at everything.

It reminded Lee of Amanda when she was bored and didn't quite know what to do with herself. He wondered if he should go in and talk to the poor kid some more. Moving to a new place with no friends was never easy. He'd done it plenty of times himself. But, before he could make up his mind what to say to her, she opened up the backpack and pulled out a book. It was about Nikola Tesla. Lee sure hoped that someone at her new school would be into Tesla.


	8. The Test

**Chapter 8: The Test**

Lee picked up the pregnancy test for Amanda on Thursday morning. He'd never been in that particular drug store before, and that was the reason he'd gone there. No one there knew him, and hopefully, no one he knew would pick that day to go there.

He'd worn his wedding ring, which he usually kept hidden at his apartment, for the occasion. He figured that the staff at the drug store would be less likely to remember a man buying a pregnancy test for his wife than one who didn't seem to be married and could be picking one up for his girlfriend. It was probably pretty common for a married guy these days to get one of these tests to see if his wife was expecting. At least, Lee hoped it was.

Hopefully, they would attribute his slight nervousness to pre-fatherhood jitters. Partly, it was. He didn't really think Amanda was pregnant, but there was always that 'What if?' What would they do? He'd always thought that he might like a wife and kids someday. It's just that someday always seemed so far away. At times, it had seemed pretty much out of reach for someone who lived the unpredictable life of a secret agent. Even now that he had a wife and two stepsons, it didn't seem completely real because they weren't living together. That bothered him. But, if this test turned out to be positive, things were definitely going to get real. Even if it didn't . . .

Lee's thoughts were interrupted by the two men at the front of the line. He'd decided to check out at the pharmacy counter instead of at the main counter at the front of the store because it was a little more private. The line was moving slowly because the people at the front often had questions for the pharmacist. Lee could only see the two men who were now talking to the pharmacist from behind, and he hadn't been paying much attention to them because there was a mother with a baby and a fussy two-year-old in front of him. For the last five minutes, Lee had been watching the young mother and thinking about babies, but the voice of one of the men had attracted his attention. The man was speaking with an accent. A Romanian accent. Curious, Lee tried to look past the mother.

One of the men said, "So you're sure this is right?"

The pharmacist's answer was quieter, and Lee didn't catch it over the whimpering of the fussy two-year-old.

"We're going home soon, sweetie," the tired mother said.

"And it is safe?" the other man said at the front of the line.

The pharmacist said something else that Lee didn't catch, but the men must have been satisfied with their purchase. They turned to go, and Lee caught a glimpse of one of them. It was the same man from the airport! He was sure of it!

So far, they hadn't seen him. Lee dropped the pregnancy test on the nearest shelf and followed after them. He was careful to hang back. Neither one of them noticed. Since neither of them had done anything illegal that he knew of, he couldn't arrest them, but he wanted to get a look at their vehicle.

The car they climbed into in the parking lot was an old, gray, four-door Buick sedan. A LaSabre, Lee thought, from the styling along the side. Probably late 1970s. Unfortunately, he didn't get the license number before they pulled out. All he saw clearly was that it had a Virginia plate.

Returning to the pharmacy counter and his original errand, Lee decided to pump the pharmacist for some information.

Seeing the pregnancy test, the pharmacist said, "This is a good choice. This brand is very accurate, and you'll have the results in minutes. Are you and the Mrs. excited?"

He was an older man with a kindly smile.

"Oh, yeah, we're excited," Lee said. That was putting it mildly. "By the way, I think I saw a couple of friends of mine in here a minute ago. You know, the two men with the accents?"

"Oh, yes," the pharmacist said. "I wondered what kind of accents they were. Where are they from?"

"Romania," Lee said. "They just moved here."

"Really!" the pharmacist said, his eyes widening. "I didn't think Romanians could come here so easily these days."

"Well, they've actually been here for awhile. I mean, they just moved here from another state," Lee said, quickly making up the story in his head. "I just hope they're not sick. They just started at their new jobs."

"Oh, no," the pharmacist said. "They're not sick. They just wanted some sleeping pills."

"Sleeping pills?" Lee asked.

"Just an over-the-counter variety," the pharmacist said. "They were worried about side effects, but I assured them it was perfectly safe."

Sleeping pills sounded innocent enough, but Lee decided to pry further. "I didn't know they suffered from insomnia."

"Oh, no, it wasn't for them. It was for their niece."

"Their niece?"

"The poor girl is afraid of flying, and she has to go on a long flight soon. They suggested it might be easier for her if she slept the whole way. I told them the pills would be perfectly fine for any child over twelve. As long as she takes the dosage listed on the box, there won't be any problem at all."

A child over twelve? Antonia Petrescu was thirteen.

"Oh, god," Lee thought.

"My congratulations," the pharmacist was saying. "I hope you get the results you're hoping for!"

"What?"

The pharmacist smiled and pointed wordlessly to Lee's purchase.

"Oh, right. Thank you!"

Lee left the drug store, vowing that he'd never come back to that location again if he could help it. The pharmacist was a nice guy, but he talked way too much.

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"Maybe it's just a coincidence," Amanda said after Lee had arrived at her house and told her what he had seen. "Maybe they really do have a niece who's afraid of flying."

"Come on," Lee said. "After they way that guy acted at the airport?"

He'd arrived a little later than he meant to because he had stopped off at the Petrescu house to make sure that Antonia was alright. She was fine, and her mother said that it had been a quiet day. Antonia's mother had finally convinced her to get unpacked and settled in, and once again, she was reading her book about Nikola Tesla. Now that she'd placed her books on the small bookshelf that Amanda had picked out as part of the girl's bedroom set, Lee could see that most of them were about science. The ones that weren't horse stories, that is.

Lee had called Fielder, who was due to check in with the family later that evening with the security team, and told him to come early and establish a watch on the house 24/7 until further notice. When he left the Petrescu house, he told Doina that it was alright to accept little treats that the neighbors might bring by to welcome them, but under no conditions should they eat any until they were inspected carefully, just in case. Lee didn't want Amanda's neighbors thinking that the Petrescus were strange or unfriendly by turning away welcome presents, but there was no sense in taking risks.

"It does sound like a pretty weird coincidence," Amanda admitted.

"I'm pretty sure Anton is hiding something," Lee said. "You should have seen the look on his face when he saw that other man. I know that they know each other. But, Anton denies it now."

They were able to talk about the situation openly because Amanda's mother was gone, and wouldn't be back until dinner time.

"If it was someone who posed a threat to his family, wouldn't he say something?" Amanda asked.

"You'd think so," Lee said. "I don't understand him."

"From what the Agency file said about him, he doesn't have any friends in the Romanian government. He has a few relatives there, but all we know about them is that his relationship with them wasn't very good even when he lived in Romania, and leaving didn't improve it." Amanda had studied Anton's file while resting up from her illness.

"That's an understatement," Lee said. "The only reason the Romanian government might not want Anton dead would be to haul him back home and find out what he's been working on over here. That's probably what they would do if they got their hands on him."

"So, you're thinking that if those two men are working for the Romanian government, they might be planning to kidnap Antonia in order to force her father to go back to Romania?" Amanda asked.

"It could be. We've got to keep a careful eye on her."

"It must be difficult for her, moving to a new place with no friends, and she won't be able to tell her new friends here anything about what her father really does for a living."

"I know," Lee said.

Any child of theirs would be under the same pressure, not able to talk about what mom and dad really do. The only reason Amanda's boys weren't under that pressure now was because they didn't know. How long would that last?

"Are you ready to take the test?" Lee asked.

"I'm ready," Amanda said. "But I tell you, it's not going to show anything. I just had the flu. I'm already starting to feel better."

"We have to know for sure," Lee said.

The test didn't show anything. Amanda wasn't pregnant.

When she showed Lee, he sat down on her bed and gave an enormous sigh. Even he wasn't sure if it was one of relief or disappointment.

Not having a baby in their future might make things simpler for now, but when he'd been thinking about it, imagining it . . . It was worrying but oddly appealing.

The boys were great, and if he and Amanda never had a child together, he'd be satisfied with them. Still, the thought of that little girl he'd imagined . . .

Amanda was studying Lee's expression.

"I know," she said.


	9. The Talk

**Chapter 9: The Talk**

Lee decided to head down to the Agency that afternoon to tell Billy the results of Amanda's test right away. The sooner, the better. Besides, he also had to tell Billy about the men he'd seen in the drug store, and he didn't want to have to explain to anyone else what he'd been doing there.

As he walked through the halls of the Agency toward Billy's office, Lee suddenly became aware that people were giving him funny looks. A few whispered to each other, and some looked away when he looked in their direction. It was a bad sign.

The bullpen was busy, as always, but a few people stopped what they were doing and watched him head over to Billy.

"Lee!" Francine said, coming out of Billy's office. "How is Amanda?"

"Amanda's just fine," Lee said. "She's still getting over the flu, but she's doing a lot better."

"She is?" Even Francine seemed a little strange, looking Lee up and down.

"Sure! Really, she's doing fine. Why is everyone so concerned?"

"Well, it was pretty alarming, the way she fainted in the Q-Bureau, and people saw you carry her to the infirmary. Billy said it was just the flu, but still . . ."

"Everything's fine, Francine. Amanda will be up and about again in another day or two."

"Well, that's good. People were wondering if it could be . . . well, something else. I didn't really think so, unless she fainted because she happened to see the stock market reports that morning." Francine laughed, but it seemed like a nervous laugh.

"Is Billy available? I need to talk to him about something."

"Sure, go on in," Francine said. "But, I think you'd better check your hands before you do."

"My hands?" Lee looked down. And saw the wedding ring. He'd forgotten to take it off.

He couldn't believe he'd been so careless! A slip like that in the field could get him killed! It must have been because he'd been so worried so about the test and the men he saw . . .

"Were you, uh, undercover this morning, Scarecrow?" Francine asked.

Her eyes told him that she wouldn't completely believe it if he said he was. Lee knew no one else was going to completely believe it either. Francine was just trying to give him a way out.

Forcing himself not to panic and reach for the ring, which would attract the attention of anyone who hadn't already happened to see it, Lee said, "Yes, I was. And, I have something important to report to Billy."

It actually wasn't that far from the truth.

"Okay," Francine said.

Ignoring the others in the room, Lee knocked (with his right hand, not his left) and entered Billy's office. He quickly slipped off the ring as soon as he entered the room, so he wouldn't forget again. Billy had seen the motion.

"Uh, oh," he said.

"Uh, oh," Lee confirmed. "I told Francine I'd been undercover this morning, but I don't know who's likely to believe it."

Billy rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I was afraid something like this might happen. Close the blinds. We need to talk."

Lee knew that the others in the bullpen would notice the closed blinds and comment on it, but he didn't care. They needed the privacy to talk things over. He could only hope that they might believe he was talking over some "secret mission" with Billy.

"What's the verdict?" Billy asked Lee. "Is Amanda pregnant?"

"No," Lee said. "She took a test, and she's not. She never really thought that she was."

Billy looked relieved. "Well, that will make things a little easier."

"How did you know? About us, I mean?" Lee asked.

Billy rolled his eyes. "For spies, you and Amanda were pretty transparent about your 'vacations.' I figured at the time that it was a romantic getaway for the two of you. Later, after you came back, I realized how differently you acted. You never used to care that much about working nights and even made it a point to work holidays. Then, suddenly, everything was different."

"So, you did some checking," Lee said, nodding.

Billy nodded his agreement. "I've known you long enough to read you. I've watched you and Amanda together. I thought the odds were good that the two of you would get together eventually. I just hadn't expected you to elope."

"What else could we do?" Lee said. "A married couple can't stay partners here, and neither of us was ready to leave. There was also Amanda's family to consider."

"Your family now," Billy pointed out. "Do they know?"

"Not yet," Lee said. "I'd spent so long trying to hide myself from them that we hadn't really built a relationship yet. We wanted a little time for them to get to know me, but we didn't want to put off starting our lives together. We were also concerned about getting the kids mixed up in Agency business."

Billy nodded thoughtfully. "I had some similar concerns when I married Jeanie. About the kids, I mean. Although I already knew that I was in line for a management position here. Things have been different for my family since I left the field. And, I just placed a family of defectors in Amanda's neighborhood." He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah, there is that," Lee said with a weak smile.

"It really was the best place we could find for them," Billy said. "Having you and Amanda close was an added convenience. But, I promise, this is the last time."

"Amanda will be glad to hear that."

"How are things with the Petrescus?"

Lee told him all about the strange man at the airport and how he had seen him again at the drug store.

"Are you sure it's not just coincidence?" Billy asked. "I mean, buying sleeping pills isn't a crime, even if it does sound a little weird to be buying them for someone that young."

"Come on, Billy! First, the guy acts weird and runs away when Anton bumps into him, and then he's shopping for sleeping pills for a girl about Antonia's age? If he didn't have something to hide, why would he have run away from Anton in the first place?"

"You're starting to sound like Amanda with one of her hunches," Billy said. "It's not positive proof of anything, but I'll admit that it does sound suspicious. You've spoken to the security team about it?"

Lee nodded. "They're going to keep a constant watch on the Petrescu house until further notice. I have the feeling that Anton is holding out on us, but I can't get him to admit to knowing anything about this guy. He had a pretty strong reaction when he spotted him at the airport. But, if this person is a possible threat to his family, why would he try to protect him?"

"You really think he's protecting him? From us?"

"I can't see any other reason for him not to tell us who this guy is and what he knows about him. I'd guess that he could be former friend from Romania, but everything we have says that he didn't really leave any friends behind, at least none that would concern us, and this guy doesn't seem like he might be a friend."

"Things can change," Billy said. "A former friend can turn into a future enemy. It could be someone he once trusted who now has a reason for harming him and his family. Keep on this, Scarecrow. Try to talk to Anton alone, if possible, and see if you can draw him out. If you can convince him that this person may mean his family harm, you should be able to get him to talk."

"Okay," Lee said.

"As for your marriage to Amanda," Billy went on, "you know there are going to have to be some changes. You must have guessed that it wasn't going to be a secret forever."

Lee swallowed hard. "We never planned on it being a secret forever."

"As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really matter. You two still are my best team. Even with everything you've been going through in private, you've never let it affect your work."

"But, Amanda and I won't be able to work together again after this mission, will we?" Lee hadn't even wanted to ask the question, but it had to be asked.

"I don't know yet," Billy said. "I've been thinking about this ever since I found out about your marriage. There are several possibilities, and I have a special project in mind, something that Dr. Smyth has been advocating for."

"Oh?" Lee wasn't sure that he liked the sound of it. As much as he wanted to remain with the Agency for awhile longer, the idea of getting involved with one of Dr. Smyth's pet projects was unsettling.

"It's more something that he'd like the Agency to focus on, and it occurs to me that you might actually be the best person to handle it, if I can get him to agree. It would elevate you to management level, which is where you should be to raise a family."

"A desk job," Lee said gloomily.

He'd always known it would come to that eventually. That's what happened to older agents. He'd never liked the sound of it any more than he'd ever liked the sound of getting old.

"It's not so bad," Billy said with a slight smile. "Take it from me. You're worried that it will be dull and you'll miss the challenges of being out in the field, but being a leader comes with challenges of its own. Maintaining control, maintaining discipline. Coming up with new ideas, new strategies. Helping newer people to hone their skills. You take a group of people with different personalities, different skills, you decide who is the best person to do what and set them a task to accomplish."

"And?" Lee asked.

"Sometimes they truly amaze you. It's true that you might miss being out in the field with them sometimes, but you also never know when you might have to step in and help them out. A good leader is one who knows how to be a team player, and he does whatever is in the best interests of his team. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you try it yourself."

"What is this new project?" Lee asked.

"I'd rather discuss it later. I don't know whether Amanda can be involved with the project with you, as your wife, although I'll strongly recommend it to Dr. Smyth. If he doesn't agree, I may have something else in mind for her so that she can stay with the Agency."

"We'd both appreciate that," Lee said.

"Lee." Billy got up from his desk and walked around it to sit in the chair next to Lee. "As far as your marriage to Amanda goes, I think we can work things out here at the Agency, one way or another, but I'd like to know what you intend to do about it outside of the Agency."

"You mean, are we going to tell Amanda's family?" Lee asked.

"Yes. Lee, a marriage is meant to be two people sharing their lives with each other. Right now, you and Amanda are mostly sharing work. Work isn't life. I know that part of the reason that you want to stay working together is so that you can continue to share in each other's life the way you have been, but what I'm trying to say is that the things that happen outside of work are the most important. Those are the things that will last for your entire life, beyond the job, beyond retirement. That's the life you have to build together."

"I know," Lee said quietly.

"And I don't think this secrecy is benefiting Amanda's family, either. They have a right to share in her life, and that means that you're going to have to share in theirs."

"I've been working on building a relationship with the boys," Lee said.

"I'm glad to hear it," Billy said. "But a real relationship is full time, not just on occasional weekends. From what Amanda says, that's basically the relationship they have with their father. They're not getting any younger, and as they grow up, they're going to need a man in their lives more."

"Amanda and I have been talking about it," Lee said. "Eventually, we're either going to have to admit to her family that we eloped, or we're going to have to get married all over again."

"What I'm trying to say," Billy said, "is that it would be better for 'eventually' to come pretty soon, for everyone's sake. The longer you try to keep this secret, the worse it's going to be when it all finally comes out, and it will come out. People here have been suspecting things about you two for some time. It wouldn't surprise me if Amanda's mother had some suspicions. And, most importantly, the next pregnancy test Amanda takes might turn out positive. She's still young enough."

"I know. We've discussed that, too."

"So, what are you going to do?"

Lee looked down at his hands, which were currently bare of the wedding ring he'd accidentally displayed to the Agency personnel.

"Do you think you can convince people here that I was wearing the ring because I was working undercover this morning?"

Billy was looking at him intently. "I can say it. I can't make them believe it."

"I'd appreciate it if you can try. After this mission is over . . . Amanda and I will either announce our marriage or our engagement. She and I will have to decide which. Then . . . we'll see what happens."

"I think that's wise," Billy said. "As I said, I'll do what I can for you career-wise."

"It might be less shocking to the boys if we get engaged and married a second time," Lee said reflectively. "People here at the Agency might suspect the truth, but I can't help that."

"Suspicions are a part of our profession," Billy said. "But, it might be a good idea if you spent as little time as possible around the Agency until the Petrescu matter is settled, and I've had a chance to talk things over with Dr. Smyth about his project."


	10. Spying in the Suburbs

**Chapter 10: Spying in the Suburbs**

Since Billy insisted that Lee take some time away from the Agency anyway, Lee decided to take the boys shopping for some supplies for their haunted house on Friday afternoon. He had already checked in with the security team watching the Petrescu house, and there wasn't much else to do anyway. Amanda was feeling a lot better, but Lee still insisted that she rest up one more day.

The first thing Lee did when he got to the King house was to quietly tell Amanda what Billy had told him the day before. Both of them were nervous about the prospect of either revealing their marriage or announcing their engagement, but they both agreed that things couldn't stay the way they were, especially not with the talk at the Agency.

"I think you're right that an engagement would be best," Amanda told Lee before the boys got home from school. "Mother would feel betrayed that we didn't tell her that we got married, and the boys would be shocked. But, what about the Agency? What are we going to tell them about that?"

"Nothing for now," Lee said. "I don't know what Billy is cooking up with Dr. Smyth or what kind of an offer they might make us. I'm not sure if I really want to be involved with any project that Dr. Smyth thinks is great. He's always been a bit slimy. Of course, there are worse people in the intelligence business. It does go with the territory."

"You once suggested that someday we might want to leave the Agency," Amanda reminded him. "If that happens, what do you think we should do?"

"Usually, agents retiring from the field find jobs in other government departments," Lee said. "Maybe something in the State Department, although those guys are usually a bunch of boring stiffs. Possibly as consultants with security companies like the one your old friend Jordan ran. There are possibilities." He tried to sound enthusiastic.

"But none of them quite like the Agency," Amanda said, echoing his thoughts.

"No," Lee said. "Neither of us really likes change, do we? Life has too many changes. And, when you've got something good, you don't want to let go."

"I know," Amanda said. "I felt that way when Joe and I divorced. It was really over long before either of us said it, but neither of us wanted to say it."

Lee squeezed her hand and said, "I'm not leaving you. Whatever happens, and wherever we're going, we're going together."

"I love you."

"Then, will you marry me? Again?"

Amanda laughed. "Of course, I will!"

They were in mid-kiss when Dotty returned from picking up the groceries and the kids.

"Later," Lee mumbled as they got up from the couch to greet the family.

The boys chattered away about their plans for the haunted house and all of the stuff they would need.

"Can we go to the hardware store and get some stuff, Mom?" Philip asked. "Everyone's coming over tomorrow to help put the haunted house together."

"Your mother should rest a little more," Dotty reminded them. "Remember, she's been sick."

"I'll take the kids shopping," Lee offered.

"Really?" Jamie asked.

"Sure," Lee said. "I have the afternoon free."

"Can we go to the electronics shop, too?" Jamie asked. "I need black lights for the Dark Forest."

"That's the room where we're putting the witch and Skinwalker," Philip added helpfully.

"It's okay with me," Lee said, looking at Amanda.

"Want me to come with you?" Amanda asked. Lee knew that she was getting bored of just being at home.

"No, you rest," Lee said. "The boys and I can handle it."

"Okay. Just be careful not to spend too much!"

"We won't!" the boys chorused. Lee saw them grin at each other.

He determined right there and then that he would show them that their stepdad (or stepdad-to-be) wasn't going to be a pushover. He could say "no" to them as well as their mother or grandmother.

Except that the hardware store and electronics store did have a lot of cool toys.

The main thing they needed from the hardware store was wood.

"We have to have a table for the monster to lay on in the mad scientist's lab," Philip explained. "We were going to borrow Andy's mom's coffee table, but she wouldn't lend it to us, and besides, it is kind of low. We want everyone to see Andy when they come into the room. It should be about this high." Philip gestured at a level somewhere around his belly button.

"We want it high enough so that people can see him, but no too high for him to get up and scare people," Jamie added helpfully.

"We can't find a table like that," Philip said, "so we're going to have to make one."

"That sounds like a lot of trouble to go to," Lee said.

"Not really," said Philip. "It doesn't have to be a real table exactly. All we need are some boards and something to set them on. Then, we throw a table cloth over them, and no one will know the difference."

"Okay," Lee said.

"We're also going to need to set up some kind of equipment that looks like something a mad scientist would have in his laboratory," Jamie said. "Tom got us some test tubes and stuff from his aunt's theater, but I really wish that we could put together something like a Jacob's Ladder. You know, one of those big spark gaps like you see in Frankenstein movies."

"Those things are pretty high voltage, aren't they?" Lee asked. "It would be dangerous, and I don't think your mother will agree to that."

"No," Jamie said regretfully. "But, I wish we could do it, or something like it."

"Cheer up," Lee said. "We might find something else that will work."

The boards were easy to get. They got a couple of boards that were about 6 feet long and were nice and thick. To support them, they bought a couple of sawhorses that were on sale. The sawhorses still cost a bit, but they were sturdy and could support enough weight to accommodate several full-grown adults. A boy Andy's size wouldn't be any problem at all. Lee agreed that the boards and sawhorses would make a safer table for him to lie on than a regular coffee table that might not be able to hold him.

The boys admired some of the tools in the hardware store, too, while they talked over other possibilities for the haunted house. It had been a long time since Lee had taken shop classes on the bases where his uncle had served, but those were good memories. Maybe he and the boys could build something later, just for fun. What was it Philip made for Amanda last Christmas? A spice rack?

"Maybe I could build something that looks like a large computer," Jamie said. "It wouldn't have to be a real one. Maybe a big cardboard box that I could poke some Christmas lights through so that we can have the kind of blinking lights that you'd expect in a mad scientist's lab."

"That sounds a lot safer than a Jacob's Ladder," Lee commented.

Then, he saw something that made him freeze. It was the same two men from the drug store! What were they doing, buying hardware?

"Well, you'd have to paint the cardboard box, too," Philip said. "It would look to cheesy to just have regular cardboard showing."

"We'll have to check out the paint selection," Jamie said. "I'm thinking that it should be gray, so it looks like metal."

"You mean silver," Philip said. "Metal is silver-colored not gray because it's shiny."

The men were looking at the tools. One of them picked up a hammer, and the other was examining a set of screw drivers. Then, they turned and started to head toward Lee and the boys. Had they seen him? Had they recognized him? Lee turned so that the men couldn't see his face.

"The Christmas lights are easy," Jamie was saying. "And we could just buy a can of spray paint. That wouldn't cost too much, would it, Lee?"

"No," Lee said quickly. He glanced toward the two men. They were looking at some toolboxes, not paying any attention to him and the boys.

"So, we just need a big cardboard box," Philip said.

Lee wished that he'd let Amanda come with him. She could have taken the two boys away somewhere safe so that he could investigate these strange men. Any moment now, they could look over and spot him. One of them might not know who he was, but the one Anton bumped into at the airport would probably recognize him. He couldn't take the chance with Philip and Jamie.

"They probably have some around here," Lee said to Philip and Jamie. "Let's ask." He started leading them away in search of a sales assistant.

Oblivious to the two men, the kids followed Lee, still talking about possibilities for the haunted house. Then, Jamie bumped into a display of flashlights, sending them clattering all over the floor.

"Look what you did, Wormbrain!" Philip said angrily to Jamie.

"It was just an accident!"

"Philip, don't call your brother Wormbrain!" Lee said automatically.

"Are you alright?" a salesman asked, hurrying over.

Lee glanced at the two men. They were looking straight at him. Immediately, Lee stooped down and started picking up flashlights.

"Oh, that's alright, sir. We'll take care of that," the salesman said.

"I'll pay for any that are broken," Lee said, still keeping his head down.

Another sales assistant hurried over and started to help clean up the mess.

The two men were coming in their direction. Lee pretended to study a flashlight he'd picked up, keeping his face averted.

As the men passed by, one of them said, loud enough for Lee to hear, "Some people just don't watch their children."

Then, they were gone. Lee breathed a sigh of relief.

SMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMK

The flashlights turned out to be heavy duty ones, so there was no need for Lee to pay for any breakages. He bought two of them anyway, along with the other stuff they needed for the haunted house. He thought it would help pay for the inconvenience the sales staff had picking them up, and besides, the boys might find them useful for their project. Jamie was especially grateful that Lee wasn't mad at him for making a mess.

"Don't worry about it," Lee reassured him. "It could have happened to anyone."

The staff at the hardware store were very nice about the whole thing and even let the boys have a couple of large cardboard boxes out of their back room for free.

"They're just boxes that merchandise came in," a salesman said. "We'd have to throw them away anyway."

Lee paid for everything, and the boys helped him load it all into their mother's Wagoneer. With two kids and a bunch of stuff to carry, Lee couldn't have brought his 'Vette along on this expedition. He was beginning to appreciate this 'mom' car.

The reappearance of the two men troubled him. If he hadn't had the boys to consider, he might have tried to tail them. But, they still hadn't done anything that was actually illegal. Going to the hardware store wasn't any more of a crime than going to the drug store for sleeping pills.

Lee wasn't sure when or if the men might pop up again, but as it turned out, he didn't have long to wait. When he entered the electronics shop with the boys, there they were again!

Lee wanted to push the boys out the door again, but Jamie was in his favorite store in all the world. Before Lee could even say anything, Jamie ran over to a section of the shop with novelty lights and lamps. There were lava lamps and spinning globes with different-colored lights.

"Whoa! This is excellent!" Jamie said. "Can you imagine some of this stuff in the haunted house?"

Philip was less excited, but he did notice one thing in particular. "Hey, look at that!"

It was a plasma globe. Little bolts of lightning shot out of the ball at the center of a clear plastic globe. When Philip ran his hand across the globe, the lightning followed him.

"Awesome!" Jamie said.

Lee looked over at the two men at the back of the shop. Neither had noticed him yet. They were talking with a sales clerk.

"Lee," Jamie said, "this would be awesome in the mad scientist's laboratory! I could use it instead of a Jacob's Ladder."

"Yeah!" Philip said. "Do you think we can get it, Lee?"

Lee checked the price tag. "It's a little expensive," he said.

"We'll pay you back," Philip promised. "We can pay you in installments out of our allowance."

"Wasn't part of the idea of the haunted house to make money?" Lee asked. "If you spend it all right away, you won't come out ahead."

"Come on, Lee! It's just too perfect!"

Lee glanced at the men again. Still at the back of the store. What were they buying?

"I'll think about it," Lee said. "What else did you want to look at?"

Jamie produced a list and eagerly began amassing items for his lighting system. He also picked up a package of blank cassette tapes and a small, inexpensive set of portable speakers. Lee would have asked a lot more questions about what he was going to do with them if he hadn't spent so much time watching the two men.

Philip wasn't too interested in what Jamie was getting. He was more interested in the remote controlled cars and airplanes. He was wandering closer to where the men were talking.

Oh, no, Lee thought. Would they recognize him from the hardware store? Was there a way he could get to Philip without them recognizing him?

The men concluded their business with the sales clerk. One of them, the one Lee had seen at the airport, went to the checkout with their purchases. The other stayed where he was, just looking at something on a shelf.

Philip took one of the remote control cars off a display stand and started playing with it. The man turned to look at him. Then, he looked at Lee.

Lee forced himself to stay calm. He simply smiled at the man and walked over to Philip.

"Hey, Philip, could you give us a hand over here?" he asked.

Jamie didn't really need a hand. He needed a basket. His arms were loaded with random electronic bits and pieces, and there was something else he was still looking at.

"Sure," Philip said, still looking down at the car. "Hey, look what I can make it do!"

The little car spun around and zipped across the floor, toward the mysterious stranger, who jumped out of the way. He glared at Philip and Lee.

"You! You cannot control your children even when you're watching them!"

He stormed away to join his friend at the cash register.

"Gees, what a grump!" Philip said. "It was just a toy car!"

"Don't worry about it," Lee said. "Just try to be a little more careful when you're trying out those things, huh?"

Lee watched uneasily as the two men talked at the register. Then, the man who had been at the airport turned . . . and locked eyes with Lee. There was a flash of recognition.

"He knows," Lee thought. His first impulse was to run over and confront them. But about what? Bumping into a guy at the airport? His next thought was to grab the boys and run. The look the man was giving him wasn't friendly.

The man said something to his partner, and the two of them hurried out of the store. Lee followed, leaving the boys behind and saw them get into the same gray car and speed away.

"Lee?" Philip asked, running out of the store after him. "Is something wrong?"

Looking into Philip's concerned eyes, Lee said, "No. I don't think so."

Seeing that that wasn't good enough, he fell back on Anton's excuse, "I thought I knew them at first. But, I guess not. They acted kind of strange."

Philip nodded. "Yeah. The one guy dropped his list, too."

"List?" Lee asked.

"His shopping list," Philip said. "I picked it up off the floor just after he complained about the toy car. I would have given it back if he hadn't run away. Were they that mad about the car?"

"I don't know," Lee said. "But maybe you'd better give me the list for safe keeping."

Philip handed it over, still giving Lee a puzzled look.

"Thanks," Lee said. "Come on, let's go check on your brother and make sure he's not buying half the store."

"Yeah, right," Philip said, laughing.

"But, I've decided to buy you guys that plasma globe," Lee said. "I think your haunted house is a good investment."

"Alright!" Philip cheered.

As they went back inside and Lee thought about what he would say when he told Amanda about the reappearance of the mysterious men, Lee suddenly realized something. For once, he would be the one to come running to his partner with a story about the mysterious men he saw while he was out shopping who were probably spies. For years, he'd joked about Amanda's ability to find dangerous people lurking around the suburbs. He'd believed that it was just because Amanda seemed to attract trouble or was just plain nosy. Now, he was seriously considering that the suburbs might hold more secrets than Georgetown.


	11. Your Guide to the Unknown

**Chapter 11: Your Guide to the Unknown**

Lee couldn't read the list that Philip picked up because it was written in Romanian. He dropped the list off at the Agency Friday evening to have it analyzed. There weren't as many people gawking at him that day as there had been the previous day, but there also weren't as many people there in general. He noted that a few of them seemed to be watching his hands in case he was sporting a ring. He wasn't.

On Saturday morning, he went to Amanda's house and found her putting together the traditional neighborhood welcome basket with her mother.

"After all the work you did helping them to get moved in," Dotty said, "I don't think you need to go overboard with welcoming gifts, but you've always been generous. Are you sure you're feeling better?"

"Oh, yes, Mother. I'm just fine," Amanda said.

"I could take the basket over for you."

Lee knew that she was mainly offering to satisfy her own curiosity about the new neighbors.

"That's alright, I'll do it," Amanda said. "I think it would do me good to get out for awhile."

Dotty couldn't deny that. "I could come with you," she offered.

"Maybe you'd better stay here with Lee and the boys," Amanda said. "The might need your help."

Dotty tried the direct method. "Amanda, is there some reason why you don't want me to meet the new neighbors?'

"No, of course not! I just thought maybe Lee and the boys can use your help."

"Do you really need me to stay, Lee?"

Lee realized that he was getting a taste of what it was going to be like, living with both Amanda and her mother. He was going to be in the middle, the arbiter between them whenever there was a decision to be made. His natural impulse was to side with Amanda, keeping Dotty away from the Petrescus and therefore Agency business. But, living so close, Dotty would meet them sooner or later.

"If you want to just run over and say hello, I think the boys and I will be fine for a little while."

Dotty smiled. "I'll get my purse!"

Amanda looked at Lee quizzically.

"If she goes with you, you can help the Petrescus explain their cover story to her and get it over with," Lee explained quickly. "It might be better than if she goes over without you someday next week and peppers them with questions."

"Good point," Amanda murmured. "But, we may be awhile. She's going to pepper them with questions anyway."

"All ready to go!" Dotty said cheerfully, her purse swinging on her arm.

"Are you sure you'll be okay with the kids?" Amanda asked.

"Sure!" Lee said. "We're going to be fine."

He was a little annoyed at Amanda's concern. He'd already met Philip and Jamie's friends. He'd handled KGB agents, raw Agency recruits, and Mr. Smyth before. Next to them, the kids were going to be-

"It wasn't my fault!"

"You were the one at the top of the ladder!"

"It was an accident! Lay off me, Wormbrain!"

"Philip!" both Lee and Amanda snapped at the same time.

Philip, Jamie, and Tom came into the kitchen. Philip and Jamie were angry. Tom seemed calm but exasperated.

"He's yelling at me for breaking his bulb!" Philip said accusingly.

"You did break the bulb," Tom pointed out.

"He put it in a bad place!"

"You hit it with a hammer," Jamie said, accusing him right back.

"I was putting up the wall hooks where they need to go! You should have waited until the curtains were up to put up those lights!"

Lee put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.

When they were quiet, he said, "You guys were supposed to wait until I was out there before either of you did anything. Philip, get a dustpan and clean up that glass before someone gets a shard in his foot. Jamie, make sure the electricity's off so no one gets electrocuted when we remove that broken bulb."

"But Philip just-" Jamie complained.

"Jamie is just-" Philip interrupted, pointing at his brother.

"MOVE!" Lee thundered.

The two boys stared at him for a heartbeat. He saw their eyes go to their mother.

"Do it," Amanda said, quietly but firmly.

They did. Not without a few backwards glances at their mom and Lee, but they did what they were told.

"We'll be fine," Lee said to Amanda confidently.

Tom was still standing there, looking at Lee with interest. "Jamie says that you're a film director. Is that true, Mr. Stetson?"

"Yes," Lee said with a quickly glance at Amanda.

"That's really awesome! I want to be a film director! Or maybe a theater director. I can't decide. But I have some great ideas . . ."

"Have fun," Amanda said, patting him on the shoulder as she and Dotty left.

Lee did have fun with the kids, although it was a lot of work, too. After the broken bulb was cleaned up, Lee did declare that they should finish hanging up the curtains for the walls before any more lights were place. Jamie said that the light had only been a test one anyway.

"I was going to take it down before the walls went up, but Philip didn't wait for me to do it," Jamie explained.

Philip threw him a dirty look.

"Come on," Lee said. "We have a lot to do today, and we'd better get moving. I want your mom to be impressed with how much we've done by the time she gets home."

Tom tried to ask Lee questions about being a director, but Lee put him off by saying that they could talk about it later, after the haunted house was together.

Lee made sure that they hung the curtains so that they covered over the work table at the back of the garage because it couldn't be moved. The stairway to the loft also had to be concealed because they didn't want anyone going up there except Jamie. While Lee helped Philip, Mark, and Andy hang the curtains, Jamie helped Tom and Alice put the props they'd assembled so far for the haunted house in the loft with Jamie's lights and special effects equipment. The three of them took stock of the props they had and what else they would need.

Philip grumped a bit about them not really helping while everyone else put up the walls, but Lee stopped him, saying that they were doing fine and they didn't really need more help with the walls anyway. There was only one ladder, and with Philip and Lee taking turns hammering and the other boys putting hooks in the curtains and handing them up, there wasn't any need for the others to help. Instead, Tom started helping Jamie to turn the cardboard boxes and old Christmas lights into a computer for the mad scientist. Alice got started on making the monster head prop.

Dotty and Amanda still hadn't returned by lunch time. Lee called the Petrescu house and found out that they were having lunch over there. Doina had been starved for company, and Dotty in particular was more than eager to supply it, wanting to know everything about them from their life in Romania to what it was like living in California.

"Is everything okay there?" Amanda asked on the phone. "The kids aren't giving you any problems, are they?"

"No, things are just fine."

Lee watched as the kids made sandwiches for themselves in the kitchen. The only one who didn't seem interested in eating was Philip. He was sitting by himself on the couch in the front room, apparently sulking.

When Lee got off the phone, he asked Jamie, "What's wrong with your brother?"

"You didn't let him be bossy today, that's what's wrong," Jamie said, rolling his eyes. "You told him what to do, and he didn't get to tell the rest of us what to do."

Alice nodded in agreement. Mark and Andy looked at each other and then quickly looked away.

Tom was busy spreading peanut butter on a slice of bread, but he added, "Besides, Kelly turned him down when he invited her to join the haunted house. She said that it sounded childish."

"I see," Lee said. "How do you all feel about it? Do you like the project?"

"Sure!" Tom said enthusiastically. "This is fun! It's like the theater."

"Yeah," Mark said. "As long as Philip doesn't make me try to be the Wailing Woman. I'll do a werewolf, but I'm not wearing a dress!"

"You're still going to help me with the headless man costume, right?" Andy asked hopefully.

"Of course," Lee said. "Alice?"

She grinned. "I'll stick with it even if I don't get around to making the fake blood. I want a chance to show off my costume." She gave an evil little cackle.

Lee looked at Jamie.

"If Philip hadn't come up with this idea," Jamie said, "I'd probably be fiddling with lights in garage by myself. It would just be nice if he wasn't so moody."

Alice said softly, "Philip doesn't have to be moody. He's doing it because he wants to be."

It was the first time Lee had seen Alice look sorry for Philip. She was pretty good at being the tough girl tomboy, but for the first time, it occurred to Lee that it might be partly an act. Alice was a pretty good actress.

Mark said, "I kind of wish Kelly would join the project. Philip would be happier if she did."

Andy said, "I kind of wish Linda hadn't left. That's really why he's not happy."

Tom shrugged and said, "You can't help that. Neither can Philip. He's got other things to do, if he wants to do them." He put the top piece onto his sandwich, but instead of biting into it, he immediately started making another. He was a growing boy with a big appetite. And, possibly, eyes that were too big for his stomach.

"I'll talk to him," Lee said. "The rest of you, get your lunch."

He went into the front room to talk to Philip.

"Hey," he said. "How's it going?"

"It's okay," Philip said, shrugging.

"We've got the walls pretty much up, that's good isn't it?"

Philip shrugged.

Lee decided to try the direct approach. "What's wrong, Philip?"

"The haunted house is lame!" Philip said. "I don't even know if I want to do it anymore."

"What do you mean, 'it's lame'?" Lee said. "You're not even done making it yet."

"I'm not making it, everyone else is," Philip muttered.

"What do you mean? You helped put up the walls earlier."

"The way Tommy wants them," Philip grumbled, deliberately using Tom's kid name.

"You helped get all the supplies together."

"All the stuff Wormbrain wanted for his dumb special effects."

Lee almost corrected Philip about the insult, but just in time, Lee realized that was meant as a distraction.

"This haunted house was your idea in the beginning," Lee said.

"I'm glad you remembered," Philip said.

"So, why don't you like it now?" Lee didn't want to pry too much into Philip's feelings for Kelly and his disappointment in her rejection. If Philip wanted to discuss her, Lee would let him talk about her himself.

"It's not my idea anymore!"

"Because the other kids are helping?"

"Because they're doing everything! I drew the map, and then Tom steps in and changes the shape of the rooms!"

"He made a suggestion about moving one wall, and that wasn't difficult. He had a point about-"

"He brings in his sister, Al the Pest, and they come in with all kinds of fancy props from their aunt-"

"They're just on loan because their aunt wants to help-"

"Andy didn't want to be the monster-"

"Well, he agreed after-"

"And Wormbrain thinks that he can call the shots because of his special effects, and he won't even play a part in the haunted house!"

"Philip don't-" Lee started to say, and then he paused. "How long have you been calling Jamie 'Wormbrain?'"

Philip blinked at Lee. "I don't know."

"How many times has your mother asked you to stop?"

"I don't know. A lot, I guess."

"Well, I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. If you use it even one more time, for any reason, you'll be grounded on Halloween, and you'll have to stay in your room while everyone else runs the haunted house."

Philip gaped at him.

"I mean it," Lee said. "And I think you know that your mother will agree with me."

"Sorry. Gees," Philip grumbled.

"Hey!" Lee said. "Don't go feeling sorry for yourself. I know that you're in kind of a funk because things aren't going the way you planned, and you're still missing Linda. But, taking it out on your brother and your friends isn't going to help anything. Whether you believe it or not, they're trying to help you."

Philip just frowned silently at Lee.

"Whose idea was this project?"

"Mine."

"And your friends know you've been brooding about Linda since she left. Did it ever occur to you that part of the reason they're so gung-ho about this is because they want it to be a success and to cheer you up?"

"They're just here to have fun," Philip said, shrugging.

"They're here to have fun with their friend Philip who could use a little fun," Lee corrected.

Philip frowned a little less.

"And they haven't taken over everything. You gave them the idea. You set the tone for the haunted house. Remember? You told them that you wanted it to be scary but not so scary it would frighten too many people away. You said that you wanted it to be a little different from other haunted houses, with different kinds of monsters."

"Yeah," Philip said slowly.

"They've really just been trying to give you the kind of haunted house you asked for. Tom only brought Alice in to play a part that you wanted to be filled."

"I guess."

"That's basically what a leader does, Philip. He gives his people their mission, sets the task that they need to accomplish. He makes sure that they have the skills and tools they need to do it. Then, he stands back and lets them do their job until they need his help and guidance. That's kind of the role you've been playing. But, you're not just a boss type, are you, Philip? I mean, I don't think you'd be happy just standing back and telling other people what to do. You're not just an idea man but a man of action, and you want to be in there working alongside the others, don't you?" Lee wasn't quite sure he was talking just about Philip anymore.

Philip was just staring at him quietly. For once, Lee couldn't tell what he was thinking.

Lee went on, "You could say that the best leaders are the ultimate team players, doing whatever their people require to help them succeed. And, I think you're a team player at heart."

"Yeah, I guess so." Philip was looking intrigued.

"So, you've got to respect your teammates," Lee explained. "Respect them for the good work that they're doing. Jamie is doing special effects because that's what he's good at. He's a better electrician than he would be a good monster, so let him do what he does best. Tom and Alice have theatrical skills, so let them use them. And, it wouldn't hurt to let them know that you appreciate them, too. No more calling anybody 'Wormbrain' or 'Pest.' You're too old for that kind of stuff anyway."

"Okay." Philip did look a little ashamed.

"By the way," Lee said, "why did you call Alice a pest? She hasn't seemed like a pest to me."

Philip shrugged. "She always used to be. Whenever we'd hang out with Tommy, she was always hanging around, following after us. She always wanted in on whatever we were doing, but she'd mess it up somehow. Sometimes, it seemed like she did it on purpose. She'd spy on us and sing stupid songs that we hated and basically act crazy until we told her to go away. She really hasn't done it for a couple years now, but she used to harass me a lot more than the others."

Lee thought about what Alice said in the kitchen and her oddly sympathetic expression and gave Philip a sly grin. "This may sound like a really crazy theory, but did it ever occur to you that she only ever did that stuff because she liked you and wanted to get your attention?"

" _Liked_ me?" Philip gave Lee a horrified look. "You mean like ' _like_ ' kind of like me?"

"Stranger things have happened." Lee spoke with grave seriousness, although part of him wanted to laugh. It had been a long time since he'd reacted that way to the idea that anyone of the female persuasion might like him . . . or had it?

"But, she's just a kid! She's a year younger than Jamie!" Philip said, glancing around to make sure that no one was near enough to hear them. "Besides . . . she's my friend's sister! That's just too weird."

"This will also come as a shock to you, but lots of girls are somebody's sister. Didn't Linda Montez also have a brother?"

"Yeah," Philip said. "But, how did you know?"

Lee forgot he wasn't supposed to know that. Or was he? This double life had gotten so complicated. "I think your mom mentioned it once."

"Oh," Philip said. "But, that was different. She was my age, and I wasn't friends with her brother."

"But imagine how her brother's friends thought about her. You still liked her anyway, no matter what they thought, right?"

Philip wrinkled his nose. "That doesn't mean I want to go out with Al."

"No, you don't have to do that," Lee said. He hadn't forgotten that, even though Philip wasn't a little kid anymore, he was still too young to date. And, there was that three-year age difference. "But, you could try treating her a little nicer, huh?"

"Okay." Philip looked a little uneasy at the prospect, but it would be enough if he agreed to make the effort.

"Okay. Now, why don't you get something to eat? We still have a lot of work to do."

"Lee?" Philip asked, looking around again to make sure they were still alone.

"What?"

"Are you and mom getting married?"

Lee froze. "We've been discussing it," Lee said carefully. "What do you think about the idea?"

Philip said seriously, "I don't know about Jamie, but I'd be okay with it. I just wanted you to know."

Lee relaxed. "Thanks, sport. I really appreciate that. Go on and have lunch now."

"Lee?"

"What?" Lee was getting a little worried now.

"Those men the other day? Were they really friends of yours?"

Lee groaned inwardly. He'd hoped that Philip had forgotten about that. But, he was pretty sharp, and as they'd just been discussing, he wasn't a little kid anymore.

"No, I don't know who they were." That was still the truth.

"Why did you chase after them?"

"I thought I recognized one of them, and I wanted to talk to him. I'm still not sure why they ran off like that." That was basically true.

"Is there something you're not telling me?" Philip asked.

Oh, so many things.

"No," Lee lied.

He felt bad about ending their talk on a lie, but he couldn't tell him the truth. Not yet. In this case, he still didn't really know what the truth was.

Philip nodded slowly and went to the kitchen to get himself some lunch. The others were almost done with theirs, but they all sat around, laughing and talking until Philip was ready to go back to work.

Philip was less grumpy after lunch, but also quieter and a little more thoughtful. They finished hanging the walls and started moving props into the rooms where they were supposed to go. Jamie provided some temporary lights so they could see in the rooms now that the windows were covered over. Tom pointed out that they could use the angles of the walls to hide things and people until their guests were almost upon them for an even bigger scare. Philip listened to his advice and took it, helping to move and position things himself. Then, Lee helped Jamie to install his lights while Tom and Philip discussed what they wanted illuminated and what parts should remain in shadow. Mark and Andy made x's with tape to mark points where people would stand and points where Philip would make their guests stop when he was playing tour guide, "Your Guide to the Unknown."

With the basic house together now, it was mostly a question of finishing up props and costumes. The spray-painted cardboard boxes were dry, and Alice helped Jamie and Tom to finish making the mad scientist's computer. Her monster head wasn't dry enough to paint yet. Philip discussed costumes with the others.

Lee was telling them how he could make the headless man costume for Andy when Amanda and Dotty came home. They weren't alone. They'd brought Antonia with them.

Antonia wore a skirt today, too, but this one was denim. She had a denim jacket, too, and her brown hair back in a ponytail. She smiled shyly as Dotty introduced her to the other kids.

Lee stood next to Amanda and gave her a questioning look.

"The whole time we were talking to Doina, Antonia just sat there, reading a book about Nikola Tesla," Amanda whispered to him. "Mother felt sorry for her and said that she ought to get out and make some friends. She invited her over."

"Figures," Lee said. So much for their plan to keep the boys away from her.

"Antonia has just moved to the neighborhood, and I thought it would be nice if you could include her in your project," Dotty said to the kids.

Philip seemed absolutely delighted with the idea. Lee wasn't surprised. Antonia was a pretty girl. By Halloween, Kelly what's-her-name would be distant memory.

"You know, we could use someone to play the Wailing Woman," Philip said. He explained to Antonia all about the haunted house and offered to take her on a personal tour of it himself.

"Think of me as Your Guide to the Unknown!" Philip said dramatically, donning a top hat with a silver moon on the front. Amanda told Lee that it came from an old magic set of Philip's.

"Alright," Antonia said shyly.

At that moment, Jamie came out of the house with the new plasma globe Lee had bought. Dotty made sure to introduce Jamie to Antonia.

"You have a plasma globe!" Antonia said delightedly.

"Yeah," Jamie said. "It's for the Mad Scientist's Lab in the haunted house. I kind of wish I could have done a Jacob's Ladder or a Tesla Coil or something really impressive for it, but this is cool, too."

"Did you know that Tesla invented the plasma globe?" Antonia asked happily.

"No," Jamie said.

Antonia was more than happy to tell him all about it. Lee shook his head. It seemed that Antonia had found a soul mate.

Once again, Philip did not look happy.


	12. The Wailing Woman

**Chapter 12: The Wailing Woman**

So it was that Antonia agreed to become the Wailing Woman for the haunted house! The girl did seem happy to have found some friends. It took a little explaining about La Llorona and banshees, the characters her costume was based on. Antonia had never heard of banshees before, but she had heard of La Llorona in California. When she tried out for the part, she turned out to be good at doing a really spooky wail.

"Ooooo!" Antonia cried spookily. "Wheeere are my chiiiiiildren!"

When she was speaking normally, she didn't use a Romanian accent, but she did when she was playing her part, and it made it sound more exotic and mysterious.

"Perfect!" Philip said.

Antonia said that she had a long white dress that she could wear for her costume, and Alice went over to her house with her to have a look at it.

Although there were two years' difference in age between the girls, they seemed to get along alright. Alice didn't wear skirts and dresses as often as Antonia did, being more inclined to jeans and sweaters, but it turned out that she actually had pretty good taste when it came to costumes. Amanda and Doina took the girls shopping on Sunday and helped them get some supplies they needed, but Alice had a special genius for making an ordinary dress into something magical. With the help of some gauzy white scarves, Antonia became a spooky spirit. When the girls put their costumes on to show the boys, Philip told Antonia that she made a beautiful spirit, which earned a smile from her and an eye-rolling from the rest of the boys.

Alice's witch costume turned out fantastic as well. She put it all together herself, except for the makeup, which Antonia did. The pale greenish makeup on her face was truly hideous in the daylight, although Jamie said that it would glow amazingly under black light. It was actually glow-in-the-dark. She wore the glowing bone beads that she'd promised and a "poisonous green" (Alice's words) scarf draped over her black dress. The skirt had neon orange stripes, which would also glow, and there was a matching ribbon tied around her black hat.

"I just wish I could think of something more interesting to do with my hair," Alice said.

"Don't overdo it," Tom advised. "Your costume is good. Your face looks great like that, and you don't want to distract people from it and from your bones."

"Maybe you're right."

Mark jokingly started singing:

 _Magalena Hagalena Ooga Waga Waka Taka Oka Moka Poka was her name!_

 _She had seven hairs in the middle of her head,_

 _Five were alive, the other two were dead!_

Alice giggled, and Jamie and Andy joined him:

 _Magalena Hagalena Ooga Waga Waka Taka Oka Moka Poka was her name!_

 _She had two eyes in the middle of her head,_

 _One was blue, and the other one was red!_

"She used to sing that song all the time when she was little," Philip groaned, rolling his eyes at Lee.

"Just because you could never get her name right!" Alice jeered at him.

 _Magalena Hagalena Ooga Waga Waka Taka Oka Moka Poka was her name!_

 _She had two warts in the middle of her nose,_

 _One stays short and the other one grows!_

"A wart!" Alice said, smacking herself on the forehead. "I didn't think to do a wart!"

"Don't bother," Antonia said. "I think you look good like this. If your face is going to glow in the dark, do you even need one?"

"Maybe not," Alice said. She looked at her hand, which was now covered in glow-in-the-dark makeup.

The boys finished up the last mournful chorus to the song:

 _A steam roller ran over Magalena . . ._

 _Poor old guy had to buy a new machine-a!_

The girls clapped happily for them.

"Divine!" Alice said dramatically. "That song speaks to me. It says: You are a truly hideous witch! Which is what I was aiming for."

"Congratulations," Mark said.

"I'm amazed that you're wearing a dress," Philip said. Lee gave Philip a warning look.

"I wore it just for you," Alice said sweetly. Then, she patted him on the back and walked away.

Philip looked confused and a little worried. Lee decided not to point out the greenish handprint on the back of his black shirt. It would wash out anyway. Assuming that Philip ever got around to doing his laundry.

The rule about Philip respecting his teammates had been working out, more or less. He hadn't called Jamie any names or referred to Alice as a pest since Lee had laid down the law.

But, maybe mentioning that Alice might like him was a mistake. While Philip hadn't insulted Alice, he'd been trying to make it clear to her that he really preferred Antonia. Antonia was closer to his age. She was prettier and dressed nicer. He was definitely not interested in any eleven-year-old sisters of his friends. The fact that Antonia seemed more interested in looking at Jamie's lighting system and talking to him about her personal hero Tesla was beside the point. The other boys completely ignored Philip's crush on Antonia. Antonia also ignored Philip's crush on her. Or maybe she just didn't care enough to notice what he said in the first place. It was a toss-up. Either way, the project proceeded in spite of it.

"I wasn't too happy at first when Mother invited Antonia over," Amanda confided to Lee privately, "but I couldn't really blame her. The poor girl did look pretty bored and lonely."

"I promise that we'll keep an eye on the kids," Lee said. "Everyone will be safe, including Philip and Jamie."

Amanda nodded. "I've been thinking about that, and it occurred to me that if Antonia hadn't made friends with the boys and their friends, she'd soon find some friends at school, and their poor parents wouldn't know anything about what Antonia's father does for a living or how important it is to keep an eye on Antonia. She needs friends, ones who understand her situation. We've worked so hard to keep the boys out of our work, but I'm starting to think that at times like this, maybe . . . maybe it's better not to. We really can keep an eye on all of them better than most other parents would."

Lee got a little thrill out of being referred to as one of the parents. A few years ago, he'd never have expected that. He thought again about the baby that Amanda wasn't expecting. What would that be like to raise a child from a baby? Amanda had already done it twice, but Lee wondered what the boys were like when they were little. In an odd way, he found himself feeling sorry that he'd missed it.

When he left that evening, was surprised to discover that he wasn't just sorry to be leaving Amanda. He was sorry to be leaving the kids, too. Before, he would have been satisfied just to have his wife with him, like a normal couple, but now that he'd gotten closer to the boys, it felt strange not to have them around, too.

"Not much longer," he consoled himself.

He and Amanda still weren't quite sure how they were going to talk to her family and how much they were going to tell them, but now Lee was becoming eager just to tell them and get it over with.

"You did well with what you said to Philip on Saturday," Amanda complimented him. "But, don't think that all talks with him will be that easy. Kids don't always get things when you first explain them. There are a lot of things they don't understand, and you may have to explain things to them all over again later. Even then, sometimes, they only learn through experience."

Lee could see that was true. Philip's crush on Antonia wasn't likely to go any further than his crush on Kelly, even with her working on the haunted house, but it didn't stop him from trying.

Antonia started school on Monday. Lee and Amanda picked Antonia up at her house and took her to school with the boys. It was rainy that day, and now that the kids knew each other, there was no reason not to drop them off together. Besides, with the two mysterious men in the neighborhood, they wanted to keep a close eye on Antonia. Philip, although unaware of Antonia's possible danger, gallantly offered to show Antonia where her classes were after they went to the school office to pick up her schedule. Antonia thanked him but said that Jamie had already given him a map of the campus.

Philip was still fuming as he stomped off to his first class while Antonia and Jamie strolled leisurely after, talking about the school's science fair. Antonia was sorry that she'd missed it.

"Poor Philip," Amanda murmured. "Disappointed in love again."

"Yeah," Lee said. "I'm kind of happy for Jamie, though. He's less shy when he's talking to someone who speaks his language, and Antonia seems to do that."

"I'm a little worried, though," Amanda said as they got back into their car. "I mean, it seems pretty nice that they're getting to be friends, but should Jamie really be dating a girl whose father has so many secrets?"

"You're married to a guy with a lot of secrets," Lee reminded her. "When it comes to that, _you_ have a lot of secrets. Besides, it's not really dating. They're just in middle school. It's really more like hanging out."

"I guess you're right," Amanda said.

That's when Lee noticed the gray car. As other parents dropped off kids and drove away, this car just stayed where it was. There were people inside, but neither of them moved, and there was no kid anywhere around it. The car was all too familiar to Lee. It was the old, gray Buick LeSabre. He'd seen that beat-up thing twice before.

"Amanda," Lee said, pointing, "those are the two men I was talking about, the one from the airport and his friend!"

"What are they doing here?" Amanda asked.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out."

"Lee, wait!" Amanda had her hand on his arm, preventing Lee from getting out of the car. "You can't just walk up there and confront them."

"I can't let them hang around the kids' school, either!"

"Let me call Billy and ask for backup," Amanda said. "I can borrow the phone in the school office. You can stay here and keep an eye on them."

"Well, alright, but hurry."

Amanda got out of the car and headed inside while Lee drummed his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. He hated just sitting and waiting. The two men didn't really seem to be doing anything, just watching and waiting, but their presence was sinister.

Lee had checked in with Billy earlier to find out what was on the list that the men dropped once it was translated and to see if the lab had any conclusions about what the two men could make with the parts they had bought. The electronic parts were so general, it was hard to tell. Mostly, it was different kinds of wires, wire cutters, small screws, a tiny set of screw drivers, and electrical tape. They could be any number of things from a kid's science fair project to a bomb. Without more information, it was hard to tell.

"Who knows what else they might have or where else they might have been shopping," Lee thought.

The list hadn't mentioned the tools they were looking at down at the hardware store, but for some reason, it mentioned blue shirts, jeans, blue baseball caps, and white paint.

After talking with Billy, Lee went back to the electronics shop and asked if the people there knew anything about the two men, saying that he wanted to return some lost property. Everyone there said that they'd never seen either of them men before and that they'd paid in cash. Untraceable. The sales clerk who had spoken to them said that they seemed to know what they wanted and were asking mostly about brands and prices. Not helpful.

The part about the sleeping pills still made Lee uneasy. They wanted them for a girl about Antonia's age. Now, they were here. They knew where she went to school.

Suddenly, the men started driving. Lee glanced back at the school. Amanda hadn't reappeared, but he couldn't wait for her. Lee started the Wagoneer and threaded his way through the other cars surrounding the school to follow the two men. Maybe now he'd learn something about them.

He managed to follow them at a discreet distance into Washington, D.C. and was surprised when they stopped close to an upscale hotel.

"With what they're driving, there's no way they're staying here," Lee thought.

The men didn't get out of the car. They just waited. Lee waited, too. Just as he was beginning to get restless, a man in a suit and tie came out of the hotel. He strolled along the sidewalk casually until he reached the gray car. Then, glancing around, he casually leaned against it and lit a cigarette. He leaned over and spoke to the men inside. They talked for a few minutes before the man straightened up and strolled back to the hotel, depositing his cigarette in the ash tray near the door.

Lee had no idea who the man in the hotel was. He'd have to check it out later. The gray car was starting to move, and he wanted to stay with it.

He did well for about ten minutes, but the men apparently realized that they were being followed. On a divided road, they suddenly sped up and cut across a median, executing a fast turn and speeding off in the opposite direction. Cars honked as the other drivers slammed on their breaks to avoid hitting them. Lee would have followed, but the other cars blocked the path. There was no way for him to take the same shortcut without hitting other vehicles.

Lee swore and turned off the street as soon as he could. He decided to head back to the hotel and see what he could learn there.

When he got there, he phoned Billy first.

"Lee, where are you? I sent Francine down to meet Amanda, and you disappeared."

Lee explained the situation.

"Amanda and Francine will meet you down there soon. Just wait there."

More waiting. But, this was a more interesting place to wait in.

Lee strolled casually through the lobby, helping himself to a newspaper from one of the racks near the front desk. That was where he saw the friend who had talked to the mysterious men in the gray car. He was standing behind the counter, smiling at him.

"May I help you, sir?"

His voice had a slight Romanian accent.


	13. A Word With Anton

**Chapter 13: A Word with Anton**

"I'm fine," Lee said to the man behind the desk. "I'd just like this paper." He dug in his pocket for change and handed it over to the man. The man's name tag said, Adrian Dalca. It was a Romanian name, as if Lee needed any further confirmation.

"Thank you, sir," the man said.

"I'm waiting for some friends," Lee said, thinking quickly. "You wouldn't happen to have seen them, would you? They drive a gray car, kind of old."

"It doesn't sound familiar, sir But, then, I don't often see the cars that arrive. Perhaps the valet knows." Adrian's smile was calm, his voice cool.

Lee decided to take a gamble. "They should have been here by now. My friend, Anton, told me that they were going to be here."

The smile froze on Adrian's face. "Anton?"

"Anton Petrescu."

"I don't know him, sir."

"I never said you did." Lee locked eyes with Adrian. Adrian immediately looked down at the computer in front of him.

"Is there anything else you need, sir?" Adrian asked quietly.

"Not at the moment," Lee said. "But if my friends arrive, please let me know." Somehow, Lee doubted that the men would be back today.

He retreated to a lobby chair with his newspaper, but he didn't read it. The chair had a good view of both the front door and the front desk. He passed the time while he waited for Amanda and Francine by watching Adrian.

The man was obviously shaken by the name Petrescu. He had been prepared to deny the presence of the other two men, but he hadn't expected Lee to mention Anton. That meant that he knew Anton, or at least, knew of him, and he was nervous about that. That probably meant that Anton knew him, and Lee determined that he was going to have a chat with Anton as soon as possible.

As to what the men's business was at the hotel, they would apparently have inside help with it.

When Amanda and Francine arrived, Lee gestured to them to head to the other side of the lobby, near the small gift shop. He wanted to talk with them out of sight of the desk clerk. He didn't want the guy to know that Amanda and Francine had any connection to him.

After he explained the situation to both of them, he asked, "Francine, can you stay here and keep an eye on the desk clerk? I want to know who else he talks to and if those guys show up again."

"What do they look like?" Francine asked.

Lee described them for her.

"Alright," Francine said. "I'll phone Billy. I'll see if I can find out what else is going on at this hotel, too. If these people want to talk to someone who works here, there has to be a reason."

"What are we going to do?" Amanda asked.

"We need to talk to Anton. I'm sure he knows who these people are. I want some answers from him."

As far as Anton was concerned, there was nothing to talk about.

"I told you," Anton insisted, "I don't know these men. I thought I knew the man at the airport, but I was wrong."

They were sitting in a small office at the Pentagon. After Billy called the Pentagon and spoke to the head of Anton's new project, Dr. Crandall, they were allowed to use an unoccupied to office to speak to Anton privately. Dr. Crandall, a middle-aged man with graying temples, was with them, mainly to ensure that Anton didn't discuss any details of the project with outsiders. However, he was also concerned about Lee's reports of the suspicious men.

"If these men pose a threat to you or the project," Dr. Crandall cautioned Anton, "you should say so. These people are here to help ensure your safety."

"I am not under threat," Anton insisted. He spoke with perfect confidence.

"Sir, these men were at your daughter's school today," Lee said. "As a family man, aren't you concerned?"

Anton hesitated, and then said, "Why should I be concerned? If they want to see my daughter's school, it doesn't mean that they were there to see her."

"I overheard them buying sleeping pills to give to a girl Antonia's age," Lee said. "Doesn't that strike you as suspicious?"

"You could have been mistaken," Anton said. "They wouldn't drug my daughter."

"How do you know that unless you know them?" Lee countered.

"I don't! I mean, I don't know them. Neither does my daughter. So, they have nothing to do with us."

"I don't believe you!" Lee said. "Are you just going to ignore this?"

"Lee . . ." Amanda cautioned gently.

But, if Amanda thought that he was pushing Anton a little too much, Lee certainly didn't. The man was a father, and he had responsibilities!

"Your family, your child, is in danger! Don't you care?" Lee snapped.

Anton's face reddened. "I think you had better leave. I have work to do here. You still want me to work for you, don't you, Dr. Crandall?"

Dr. Crandall was studying Anton. "Yes," he said. "But, if there is any threat against your daughter, I want you to tell me. We want to protect her as well as you, but we can't unless you let us."

"There is no threat," Anton said stiffly, "and I can protect my family myself. Good day, gentlemen."

He got up and walked out of the room. No one tried to stop him.

"He's hiding something!" Lee insisted to Amanda and Dr. Crandall. "I don't know why he's shielding these men, but he is."

"I don't like the sound of this," Dr. Crandall said. "We need Dr. Petrescu for this project, but if the man is compromised-"

"We don't know that yet," Amanda said. "We're not sure who these men are or what their intentions are. We're just trying to learn more about them."

"But, you seriously believe they may be a threat to Dr. Petrescu and his family?"

"Yes," Lee said before Amanda could say anything.

"You've been maintaining a watch on their home, haven't you? Is there any sign that these people know where he lives?"

"Not yet," Lee admitted.

"Is there any reason to believe that Dr. Petrescu might be a security risk?"

"No," Amanda said.

Dr. Crandall looked at Lee. Lee let it stand at that. Although he thought that Anton was hiding something, he didn't have the impression that he was working with these two men for any nefarious purpose. If he was, they wouldn't be stalking his daughter.

Dr. Crandall sighed. "Alright. Keep an eye on him and let me know if there are any new developments."

As they drove back to Amanda's neighborhood, Lee said, "If Anton keeps his mouth shut, there isn't much we can do, but I just know that those men are a threat. I don't know why he's protecting them!"

Amanda said, "Lee, I know that the part about the sleeping pills was strange, but you can't prove that they were for Antonia."

"And then they show up at her school, watching the kids?" Lee said. "No, that's way too much coincidence."

"I'm supposed to go shopping with Doina this afternoon," Amanda said. "Maybe I'll learn something from her. If Anton knows who these people are, maybe she does, too."

"That's a good idea," Lee said. "Even if Anton doesn't care about his daughter, she will."

"I'm sure he cares," Amanda said.

"Well, he doesn't act like it!"

"Lee, are you thinking about the risk to the boys?"

Truth be told, he wasn't. Not quite.

"If there was any threat to the boys, you can bet I wouldn't be pussy-footing around about it," Lee said.

That was true, but deep down, he was thinking about a little girl with brown eyes. Like Amanda's. Like Antonia's. If he and Amanda had a daughter, would she look anything like Antonia? He'd never seen pictures of Amanda as a child. It was something to ask Dotty about.

"I know you would. I'm a little worried now about the boys being friends with Antonia, but, well, I still think that girl could use some friends. We're going to have to keep watching her."

"I think so, too," Lee said.

"The boys could be at risk, being close to her. If something were to happen-"

"It won't," Lee promised. "We'll have agency personal watching the school and her house. We won't let anything happen."

"What I'm try to say is, I think the boys should be warned."

Lee could see the sense in it, but he said, "How can we? We can't tell them about Antonia's father . . . or about us."

"But, we could still tell them that there are suspicious people around, couldn't we? Tell them to be careful of strangers? To stay together? To watch out for suspects in a gray car?"

Lee thought about it. "We'll talk to them after school. We could say that a couple of guys in a gray car have been harassing students, especially girls. They're old enough that they should understand about strangers. And, we can tell them to call us immediately if they see anyone suspicious."

"I guess that would be good enough," Amanda said. "Lee, I don't know what Billy is arranging for us and our careers, but whatever it is, I want the boys to know after we're married . . . again. Antonia is just one risk. There will be others."

"We'll have to tell them something," Lee agreed. "But, we're going to have to wait to see what happens before we're going to know what to tell them."


	14. Plainclothes Police

**Chapter 14: Plainclothes Police**

Doina didn't explain anything to Amanda that day. It was partly because they weren't able to talk freely most of the time. When Dotty found out that Amanda was going shopping with Doina, she invited herself along. There was no way that Amanda could say no without it looking suspicious or hurting her mother's feelings.

Amanda did get a chance to talk to Doina briefly when they went to pick up the kids from school. Dotty stayed home so that there would be more room in the car for the kids.

When Amanda explained about the two men in the gray car, Doina said, "I don't think it's anything to worry about. It is just coincidence. Mr. Stetson just thought that he saw these two men again."

"They were the same men in the same car," Amanda said. "He's seen them four times now, not counting when he saw the first man at the airport."

"He could be wrong."

"But, you saw the man at the airport, didn't you?" Amanda said.

"I saw many people at the airport."

"You saw the man your husband recognized, didn't you?"

"He didn't recognize anyone. He said it was a mistake."

They were near the school now. Amanda pulled over to the side of the road where she or Dotty often waited for the boys. Doina just looked out the window of the car, not looking at Amanda.

Amanda tried again. "He thought that he saw someone. Who did he think he saw?"

Doina shrugged. It was like talking to Philip or Jamie when they were afraid of admitting something, not wanting to tattle on a friend.

"Doina, I'm not just asking this as a government agent. We're neighbors. We're friends. My boys like Antonia. If she's in danger-"

"She's not."

"But, if-wait, look over there!" It was the same gray car. It was parked near the curb, a little closer to the school than they were.

"That's the one!" Amanda said. "Do you recognize it?"

Doina's brow furrowed. "No," she said. "I've never seen it before."

Amanda believed her. She did look puzzled. The two women watched as the children came walking down the sidewalk. Antonia was walking between Philip and Jamie.

As the kids passed by the gray car, two men got out.

Doina gasped.

"You know them, don't you?" Amanda asked.

"No!"

Amanda wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a denial or if Doina was just shocked at what she was seeing.

The men started talking to the children. Whatever they said, Philip didn't like it. He grabbed hold of both Jamie and Antonia and began pulling them away.

Across the street, two other men got out of a brown sedan. They were Agency men, and Amanda was glad for their presence. They started across the street.

Suddenly, one of the men from the gray car grabbed Antonia's hand.

"Antonia!" Doina said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Wait!"

Before Amanda could stop her, Doina got out of the car and started running down the sidewalk toward her daughter. One of the men turned and saw her. He said something to his friend, who dropped the girl's hand.

The two Agency men had almost reached the sidewalk. Seeing their approach, the other two men dove back into their gray car and sped off. They almost sideswiped one of the Agency men and nearly hit a couple of students crossing the street, but they all managed to dive aside in time. Parents were yelling, and the school crossing guard blew her whistle in vain. Amanda jumped out of the car and ran toward her children.

Doina was hugging Antonia, and the Agency men were asking Philip and Jamie if they were alright.

"We're okay," Philip said. "Did you see that, mom?"

"I saw it, Sweetheart. What did those two men say to you?"

"They said that they were here to pick up Antonia," Philip said. "I said no they weren't because she's coming home with us. The taller guy insisted that Antonia's father sent them to get her, and he tried to grab her when she didn't want to go with them."

"I think we'd better get Antonia home now," Amanda said with a meaningful look at the Agency men.

"We'll have to file a report," one of them said.

Francine hadn't told them that the boys didn't know about the Agency, and Amanda hadn't thought to mention it, either. Lee usually took care of those kind of reminders, but he hadn't been there.

"A report?" Jamie asked. "You mean a police report?"

"You're plainclothes police, aren't you?" Amanda said, nodding meaningfully at the Agency men.

They got the hint.

"Yes, ma'am. There's been some strange activity in the area, and we were watching in case anything happened," the same man said.

"Well, perhaps I can leave you our names and addresses, and you can stop by later. I'd like to get the children home," Amanda said. She pulled a small notebook out of her purse and scribbled a note. It told the agents to contact Lee immediately.

The agent who took the note read it and nodded. "That would be fine, ma'am. We'll have someone stop by or call you to take down your information for our report."

"Those men were the same guys we saw when we were shopping with Lee!" Philip said.

Both of the agents raised their eyebrows. Amanda didn't know if they were more surprised that the kids had seen the men before or that Lee had taken the kids shopping. More fodder for Agency gossip!

"Lee thought he recognized them," Philip continued confidently, "but he said they were acting weird."

"Maybe Lee should explain it to them later," Amanda said. "I think we'd better go home now."

On the way home, Amanda told the kids that they did the right thing by not getting in the car with the men and cautioned them to be very careful and keep an eye out for strangers because some odd things had happened recently in the neighborhood.

"And, if you see those men again," Amanda said, "I want you to tell me and Lee right away."

The boys wanted to talk about it some more, but neither Antonia nor Doina said anything during the entire ride. They dropped Doina and Antonia at home, and when they reached their house, the boys eagerly told Dotty the whole story.

"And then, these plainclothes officers just showed up!" Jamie said.

"It's awful!" Dotty said. "Crime in this country is just getting worse and worse. I tell you, it was never like this when I was young."

"I know," Amanda said. "I think I'll go over and see how Doina and Antonia are doing. They were pretty shaken by this."

"I'm not surprised," Dotty said.

"Maybe we should go over and see Antonia, too," Philip volunteered.

"No," Amanda said. "I think it would be better for you to stay here with your grandmother in case the police come to take your statement. If they want to talk to me, too, tell them that I won't be long."

Amanda hurried out of the house toward the Petrescus'. She hoped that Lee would be there soon.


	15. The Second Antonia

**Chapter 15: The Second Antonia**

Francine sipped a cup of coffee and enjoyed a chocolate éclair. Just one wouldn't ruin her waistline. She ate it slowly to make it last.

Besides the gift shop, the hotel also featured a fabulous restaurant and café. After Lee had left her and taken Amanda off to talk to Anton, Francine called the Agency from one of the phones in the hotel lobby, checked back to make sure that Adrian Dalca was still on the front desk (he was), and bought her little treat to enjoy while she kept her eyes open. It also gave her an excuse for lingering in the lobby.

So far, watching Adrian was one big yawn. Every once in awhile, a man in a suit or a woman in a fashionable dress would come to check in or check out or ask a question, but no one stood out or acted suspicious. There was no sign of the two mysterious men Lee had seen, either. At one point, a group of workmen in blue uniforms that said "Potomac Renovations" on them in white letters attempted to pass through the lobby, but they were quickly ushered back toward the service entrance. That was the most exciting thing Francine had seen so far.

"They must be new," Francine thought. "Workmen with paint stains on their clothes wouldn't be allowed to hang around the lobby of a hotel like this."

In another half hour, she was supposed to call Billy back and see if the Agency computers had turned up anything on Adrian Dalca or any important guests staying at the hotel. If there wasn't anything significant, eating the éclair might be the most useful thing Francine had done with her day so far.

Lee wasn't usually the kind to go off on wild goose chases, but privately, Francine wondered if his relationship with Amanda had done something to his mind. For awhile, she'd actually believed Amanda when it seemed like her relationship with Lee had ended. Francine had truly believed that Scarecrow wasn't the type to settle down ever with anyone. But, she had to admit things had been different with Amanda.

When people around the Agency found out that Amanda had fainted at work, a few of the male agents quietly nudged each other and made jokes about pregnancy and Scarecrow's sins finally catching up with him, but very few people laughed. Francine hadn't really believed the pregnancy rumors, not so much because of Lee but because of Amanda. A woman who already had two kids wasn't likely to be careless enough to have another one in a fling with a co-worker. But, then, there was that ring Lee was wearing.

That was the one thing that had really blown her over. She'd suggested that the ring was part of an assignment partly to see Lee's reaction. Even after years of controlling himself in front of enemy agents, there had been that split second of panic that told her everything she needed to know.

At first, she'd been hurt. They'd been friends for so long, how could he do something like this and not even let on to her? But, she'd controlled herself. When Lee left after his talk with Billy, Francine's first instinct was to talk to Billy herself and demand that he tell her everything, but she hadn't done that, either. Maybe it wasn't just Lee changing. Maybe she'd changed, too.

Her own romance in the last year had made her more aware of how private feelings and professionalism could clash. So far, she was pleased with the way she was handling herself. She wasn't sure exactly where her relationship was heading, but for once, she felt content to let it lead her wherever it was likely to go.

In the past, she realized that she'd tried too hard to control everything. Being out of control often scared her. She even kept up on astrology to avoid any nasty surprises. But, not all surprises were nasty. Her new romance had come as a surprise, even to her, but it all felt so natural and comfortable that she didn't even want to check her horoscope about it anymore. For once, she didn't care what it had to say.

That was probably what it was with Lee and Amanda, she thought, licking a dot of chocolate off of her fingertip. When you'd made up your mind about the future yourself, you didn't want to ask anybody, not your friends, not your family, not even the stars. And, Francine could see the problems for Lee and Amanda career-wise. After all the ribbing she'd given them since Amanda joined the Agency, she was surprised to realize that she'd be sorry to see Amanda go.

Billy was still insisting that Amanda had only had the flu, and maybe that's all it really was. She'd certainly seemed alright when Francine had met her earlier that day. But, Francine had never been pregnant and had to admit that she couldn't really tell if Amanda was or not. If she was, it was the end of her career as a field agent. Francine had seen other female agents taken out of the field when they got pregnant, intended or otherwise. None of them ever returned to the field.

It wasn't exactly the kind of life for a mother with young children: long hours, unpredictable schedules, not to mention the risks of dealing in espionage. The few mothers who returned to the Agency at all were either in the steno pool or at some sort of relatively safe desk job in a department like accounting, personnel, or internal affairs. Francine could count the number of working mothers she knew on her fingers, and even then, there were fingers left over.

In the end, Francine supposed, changes were inevitable. None of them were getting any younger, and life was moving on. That thought used to worry her, but not so much anymore. The job kind of conditioned people to expect nasty surprises around every corner, but sometimes, when you just sat back and observed, life could pleasantly surprise you, too.

Such it was that, as Francine took the last bite of her delicious éclair, she was able to witness something that shed light on the situation. She could hardly have missed it since the entourage that came through the front doors of the hotel wasn't trying to be quiet at all.

There were men in dignified black suits and women in exquisitely tailored dresses. That was hardly unusual for this setting. But, Francine recognized the language they were all speaking: Romanian.

Her Romanian wasn't good enough to discern anything from the babble of voices from the group, but everyone seemed to be in a festive mood. Everyone, that is, except for the one dressed the most festively, the only child among them. She looked bored and tired. She wasn't a small child. She looked like she was probably in her early teens, but she was still young enough to be bored with the adults' conversation.

Francine didn't normally notice children much, but the girl stood out, not only because she was the only child and the only person in the group who didn't seem happy, but because of her outfit. The girl wore a beautifully embroidered vest over a white blouse with a bright red skirt. Francine had seen similar outfits when she had once had to attend a cultural festival at the Romanian embassy.

Relations between Romania and the U.S. had been awkward for years. Although Romania still held Most Favored Nation status with U.S., there had been regular calls in Congress to revoke that status over human rights issues. Recently, the Romanian embassy had made attempts to improve relations with the U.S. through cultural activities. Few people in Washington could resist the pleasant sight of children in folk costumes dancing to traditional music. Personally, Francine's heart strings were tugged more by the presence of fine chocolate, but to each their own.

Something about the appearance of this unhappy young girl did touch Francine, and the presence of a large group of Romanians in this hotel raised her suspicions. Francine watched as the young girl drifted slowly away from the adults and went to stand by the window to the lobby gift shop. She was staring at a small display of jewelry. Moving slowly, Francine abandoned her cup of coffee to join her.

"They're pretty, aren't they?" Francine said, commenting on the jewelry the girl was looking at. She said it in Romanian.

The jumped at Francine's voice and looked surprised. "You speak Romanian?" the girl asked.

"Oh, yes," Francine said. She had already decided on her cover story. "I'm a translator for the Foreign Service. My name is Francine." She only hoped that this conversation wouldn't exhaust her language skills. It had been a long time she since had last spoken Romanian. "I speak several languages. I saw your costume and knew you were Romanian. Are you a dancer?"

"Yes," the girl said. "I mean, I take dance lessons at home. I had to dance at a festival today."

"At the embassy?"

The girl nodded. "How did you know?"

"I've been to festivals at the embassy before. Did you have fun?"

Francine could have guessed the answer even before the girl gave an unenthusiastic shrug.

"Today is my birthday," the girl said sadly. "I wish I could have been with my friends instead."

"Oh, well, let me wish you happy birthday!" Francine said. "How old are you now?"

"Fourteen."

"If it makes you feel any better, not many fourteen-year-olds get to travel to other countries."

The girl didn't seem too excited about that, either. Francine thought she could see tears at the corners of the girl's eyes. "I don't have any friends here. I thought if I came, I could spend my birthday with my father. But, he talks to everyone else, not me!"

The girl turned and looked at the jewelry again. One of the bracelets seemed to fascinate her, a small silver one with round pieces of turquoise. It was light and beautiful and looked like just the thing for a young girl's wrist. Francine wondered if she'd received any birthday presents from her father yet.

Francine understood the girl's feelings. When she was young, her father was always busy with business, too. But, one thing he'd never forgotten was her birthday. Even when she was at boarding school, there would be a present from him. Of course, it was usually something practical, like a new calculator, a wooden pen set with her name carved into it, or more books to help her studies. The more fanciful things that a girl really wanted for her birthday came from her mother.

"Men can be like that," Francine said sympathetically. "They don't always understand what's important to a girl. Where is your father now?"

"Over there."

The girl pointed to one of the men in the identical black suits. But, this wasn't just another embassy flunky. Francine recognized him. Now, she really believed that Lee had a right to be concerned.

"You know what you should do?" Francine said to the girl. "Go back to him and talk to him. I don't think that he's completely forgotten your birthday, but men sometimes get distracted. It helps to give them little reminders. You could ask him to have pastries with you in the café for your birthday. I just tried an éclair, and they're great."

"He looks busy," the girl said doubtfully.

"Only because those people just walked up and started talking to him," Francine said. "So, you go up and do the same. Be bold! It's your birthday! Tell everyone that."

"I could try," the girl said shyly.

"You do that . . . I forgot to ask your name," Francine said.

"Antonia."

There was a coincidence, Francine thought.

"You go up and talk to them, Antonia. Ask them to wish you a happy birthday."

The girl went. Francine watched long enough to see her father acknowledge her. The adults around her smiled as she spoke, and a couple of them shook hands with her, offering birthday congratulations. Antonia's father put an arm around her, smiling proudly. She was going to be alright.

Francine hurried away before the girl could say anything about her. She had to make a phone call to the Agency, and in spite of young Antonia's friendliness, her father was the last person Francine wanted noticing her.

As she passed by the front desk, she noticed that Adrian Dalca had suddenly disappeared. Francine looked around for him. Did he go on break or was he hiding for some reason?

She finally spotted him in a corner of the lobby, far away from the Romanian group. He'd been cornered by an elderly lady who seemed to be complaining about something. Francine had to walk past them to get to the hallway with the public telephones, so she paused to listen as she passed.

"I understand the noises from the renovations during the day," the lady was saying, "but now they've started making noises at night, too. What is going on on the fifth floor?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Adrian said. "They're just repairing and redecorating a few of the rooms. It won't be much longer."

"It's been for the entire week I've been here, and they're still not done?" the lady said. "Are they so behind schedule that they have to work at night, too?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't know why they were there so late, but it won't happen again."

"And one of them did something that messed with the thermostat. It was freezing in my room last night! It took him two hours to fix it. Why doesn't the hotel maintenance staff handle these things?"

Good question, thought Francine. As she hurried on to find a telephone, she made a mental note to check out the fifth floor.


	16. You Told!

**Chapter 16: You Told!**

Doina was both grateful and nervous when Amanda came to see her after the incident at the school.

"I thought it might be best to talk without the boys around," Amanda said. "How is Antonia now? Is she upset about what happened?"

Antonia was in the kitchen. She had a plate with cookies and a glass of milk in front of her, but she hadn't touched either. She had tear stains on her cheeks.

"I'm sorry that happened today at school," Amanda said, giving the girl a hug. I know you must have been scared."

Antonia hugged her back and asked, "Who were those men?"

"I don't know," Amanda said, looking at Doina.

"Mom knows!" Antonia said angrily.

"Antonia, enough!" Doina snapped.

"Yes, it is! You won't tell me anything!"

"You know what you need to know."

"No, I don't!"

"Antonia, go upstairs!"

"I want-!"

"Go, now! We'll talk later. I want to speak to Mrs. King now."

"I want to speak to Mrs. King, too!"

"Antonia, go!"

Antonia looked like she might cry again.

Amanda said gently, "You go upstairs and wash your face, sweetheart. I promise, we'll talk later. I just want a word with your mother now."

Amanda had the feeling that Doina was going to tell her something that she didn't want Antonia to hear. Sullenly, silently Antonia left the room. Doina sank into a chair at the kitchen table.

"She will be alright," Doina said. "She is a very strong girl. I just can't believe . . ." She broke off.

"You can't believe what?"

The kitchen table stood in the cozy nook that Amanda had arranged with the pretty blue curtains and matching rug. It looked cheery and comforting on a gray day like this, but the cheeriness of the kitchen was no match for Doina's distress.

Doina put her head in her hands and mumbled, "That's the problem! I can't believe Anton!"

Amanda put her hand on Doina's arm. "What did Anton do?"

"He told them! He told them where we were!"

"Those two men?"

"Yes!" Doina was shaking.

"Who are they?"

"His-his brothers. Stefan and Vasile. They were part of the reason we had to come here."

"His brothers?" The Agency files had mentioned that Anton had brothers but there was no particular information about them, only that they were still in Romania and that Anton had not had contact with his family there since he left. Anton himself reported that they did not get along.

"Not many people know," Doina whispered. "They are dangerous men."

"I think you had better tell me about them," Amanda said.

Amanda listened as Doina poured out the whole story. Lee arrived toward the end of it.

"Anton must have told them!" she cried. "How else could Stefan have been at the airport when we were? How else would he know where Antonia's school is?"

"I just came from talking to Billy," Lee said. "Francine found out something interesting today. I think I know why Stefan and Vasile are here, and it looks like they might have other interests besides your family. For what it's worth, Doina, I don't think they knew that your family was here until they accidentally saw you at the airport. Anton might not have told them anything at all, at least not on purpose. Do you know a man named Adrian Dalca?"

"Adrian?" Doina looked confused. "Is he here, too? He and Anton were friends when we were all students, years ago. He came to this country before we did. Anton writes to him sometimes, but I thought that he was living in New York."

"He's here," Lee said. "Was Adrian also friends with Stefan and Vasile?"

"I think so," Doina said, "but Anton and his brothers didn't get along even then, so I can't be sure. He spent more time with me than he did with any of them."

There was the sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door.

"Anton is home," Doina said.

"Good," Lee said. "I need to talk to him."

"Doina," Anton called, "are you here? There are men in a van outside. Is everything-" He stopped when he entered the kitchen and saw Lee and Amanda.

"Anton," Doina said. "They know about Stefan and Vasile."

"You told?" Anton asked.

"I had to! They tried to take Antonia!"

"No! They wouldn't!"

"They did!"

"Is she-?" Anton looked wildly around for Antonia.

"She's here," Amanda reassured him. "She's safe."

"For now," Lee said more ominously. "But, if you don't tell us where to find Stefan and Vasile, we can't answer for the future."

"I don't know! I haven't spoken to them at all!"

"But, you did speak to Adrian Dalca."

Anton now looked ashamed. "We were friends for years. When we first came to the United States, he was the only person I knew here. I knew where he was living in New York, and I wrote to tell him that my wife and I were living in California. We spoke off and on through the years. When I realized that I was being relocated to the east coast, I told him. I did not tell him why! I told him nothing about the project I've been working on. I only told him that we would live in Virginia. He contacted me and told me that he had also accepted a job in Washington D.C.. I thought we might visit with him sometime. I thought it would be nice to see an old friend."

"When was the last time you spoke to him and what did you tell him?" Lee asked more gently.

"When we first arrived, I called him on a number he told me to call," Anton said. "I told him we were here but that I had seen Stefan at the airport. He told me that he knew Stefan was here but that I was not to say anything to anyone. I knew there could not be a good reason for Stefan to be here."

"Because Stefan and Vasile are plotting to overthrow the Romanian government," Amanda said. That was what Doina had confessed to her and Lee. That was what she had not wanted to tell Antonia.

"They have been for years," Anton said. "They joined the resistance movement as students. They wanted me to join, too, but I refused. I was a scientist, and I did not want to be part of their violence. They called me a coward and a traitor for not helping them. They said that I was turning my back on Romania for not using my skills to rid our country of an oppressive dictator. But, I was not willing to be an assassin. I got married, and then, I had my wife and young daughter to think of."

"I was always afraid that Anton would be arrested for the things that Stefan and Vasile did," Doina said. "The government only tolerated him because they wanted his skills for their own use."

"I did not want to serve a government that was oppressing our people, but I didn't want to join in the violence that Stefan and Vasile advocated. When we had the chance, we left Romania," Anton said. "We wanted Antonia to grow up in a safer place. I had thought that we would never see Stefan and Vasile again. It was sad, but for the best. I don't know how they got to this country. The government already had their suspicions about them, and with my defection, it should have been enough to restrict their travel."

"I don't know the answer to that, either," Lee said. "But, I'm sure Adrian does. He's their friend, and he's helping them. What did Adrian tell you about their mission?"

"That I should mind my own business if I didn't want to be part of it," Anton said. "He said that if I didn't tell my wife or Antonia about him, things would be better for us, we wouldn't be involved. He didn't tell me that he had already told Stefan and Vasile how to find us. If he had, I would have told you and taken my family back to California, out of their reach."

"Why didn't you tell us when we told you that they were watching Antonia arrive at school?" Amanda asked.

"I was surprised and a little worried, but even then, I didn't think that they would do anything to their own niece!" Anton said. "I thought maybe they just wanted to have a look at her, that they wanted to see how she had grown up. They haven't seen her very much, and she was so young when we left Romania. I doubt she even remembers them."

"So Adrian didn't say anything about Mihail Negrescu?" Lee asked.

Anton paled. "He's here?"

"He's staying at the hotel where Adrian works," Lee said. "He didn't say anything about it?"

"Of course not!" Anton said. "If he had, I wouldn't be standing here, talking to you! I would have taken my family and left on the first available plane! He's high up in the Directorate for Foreign Intelligence. He's seen me before, and he knows who my brothers are. Stefan and Vasile must be crazy to think that they could get away with anything with him here! Why is he here? Is he looking for me?"

One of the activities of the Directorate for Foreign Intelligence was using espionage to learn about technological achievements in other countries. Another activity was assassinating dissidents. Anton and his brothers would all genuinely be in danger if this man knew that they were here.

"Officially, he's here as part of a 'goodwill' visit. He's been granted a temporary ambassador status so that he can attend a cultural festival at the Romanian embassy and to join other prominent Romanians to lobby for Congress not to revoke Romania's Most Favored Nation status. However, we believe that he may be checking up on Romanian agents in this country. Their activities have been oddly quiet lately, and our intelligence indicates that some of them may have been recalled to Romania," Lee said. "We don't know why yet. Negrescu's young daughter is one of the dancers at the festival. Have you ever met her?"

Amanda gave him a questioning look.

Anton shook his head. "I have heard that he has children, but I have never seen them."

"Funny coincidence," Lee said. "His daughter's name is Antonia. She's not much older than your Antonia. She just turned fourteen years old today."

Lee was watching Anton's face. The details about Antonia Negrescu didn't seem to bother him. He didn't seem interested in her. He had something else on his mind.

"Where is Antonia? My Antonia?" Anton asked.

"She is upstairs," Doina said. "I sent her upstairs so I could talk to Mrs. King."

"Has she been up there all this time? She is being very quiet."

The four adults looked at each other for a moment before they all hurried to the stairs to go check on Antonia.

The girl's bedroom door was closed. Her father flung it open, calling her name. "Antonia!"

Somehow, Lee already knew that she wasn't going to be there. Her parents stood in shocked silence as Lee charged over to the open window.

"The window isn't supposed to open that wide without the alarm sounding," Amanda said. "How did she do it?"

Amanda's instincts had already told her that Antonia had left of her own free will. She was a clever girl, and she'd had plenty of time alone in her room to figure out how to do it.

Lee inspected the window frame. "Somehow, she got at the wiring," Lee said. "I'm not sure what she used to pry the wood off here, but I think these wires came from Jamie's stock, and I'm pretty sure I recognize the gum holding them in place."

He'd seen Alice blow enough bubbles with that weird purple gum she had to recognize it anywhere. Had she known what Antonia was going to do with it when she'd offered her some? Probably not. Antonia was used to secrecy. She'd lived with it pretty much all her life. She's simply saved a couple of pieces given to her by her new friend until she had a use for them.

"Jamie!" Amanda said. "Come on, I think I know where Antonia is."


	17. Scarecrow and Mrs King

**Chapter 17: Scarecrow and Mrs. King**

Fred Fielder was bored. Things had been slow, uncharacteristically slow at the Agency lately. It was weird, but still a welcome break. At first, he'd thought maybe he could use the slowness to talk Billy into letting him take some time off, but then, Billy had handed him this assignment: watching a house of defectors who had lived in the States for years! Talk about Yawn Patrol!

He couldn't believe Billy would hand him this assignment, especially under Scarecrow's direction. Everyone knew that the two of them did not get along.

Paranoia, that's what it was, Fielder decided as he sat in the van with Lopez and Carter during their shift. Scarecrow couldn't stand it that not much was happening at the Agency lately, so he had to try to make his assignment to help this scientist and his family seem much more exciting than it really was.

That, and Fielder had the odd feeling that Scarecrow was kind of soft on the Petrescu kid. Scarecrow really had been acting weird lately, and maybe it wasn't just the slow days at work. Rumor had it that Mrs. King might be pregnant, and if she was, there wasn't any mystery about who was responsible. Billy said Mrs. King just had the flu, but the others who had the flu didn't faint.

It just seemed to confirm what everyone was already thinking about Scarecrow and his partner. Everyone knew that Scarecrow was a playboy type. He had been for years. He'd had affairs with co-workers before, and although Mrs. King hadn't seemed like the type that usually fawned over him, he'd had a few years to work on her. From what Fielder had heard, it was amazing that the guy hadn't gotten any of his other girlfriends pregnant, but maybe the odds had finally caught up with him. A man about to become a father unexpectedly might behave in all sorts of strange ways. Come to think of it, expectant mothers behaved strangely, too. In spite of what Mrs. King said about the two men trying to grab Antonia Petrescu that afternoon, Fielder had the feeling that it was all just paranoia.

Both of them were in the Petrescu house right now, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, talking to Anton Petrescu and his wife. He hoped that the Petrescus wouldn't swallow too much of their paranoia. Scarecrow and Mrs. King might not be working for the Agency much longer anyway.

Fielder chuckled a little at the idea of Scarecrow as a father. The best part would be if Scarecrow had to leave the Agency to take care of his new family responsibilities. Yep, a nice, quiet desk job somewhere deep in the bowels of the State Department. He'd go stark raving mad in less than two months, but that thought didn't trouble Fielder at all. He was more concerned with whether or not he might be able to wrangle Lee's job in the Q-Bureau when he left. It seemed like a pretty cushy position, and he'd been wanting his own office. Maybe Billy would even let him have a pretty assistant of his own . . .

"Hey, what's that?" Carter interrupted Fielder's daydream.

"What's what?"

"That!"

The sky was a solid gray, and it had started drizzling again. A small figure was huddled under a tree in the Petrescu front yard. With the hood of her pink jacket up, it was impossible to see her face, but she seemed to be looking around, waiting for something.

"Is that the girl, Antonia?" Fielder asked.

"I think so. She just came from around the side of the house."

"If what Mrs. King said about this afternoon was right, she shouldn't be out by herself," Lopez muttered. "What are they doing in there?"

"I don't know," Carter said, "but what do we do about the kid?"

The three men watched as the girl got up and darted out of the yard. She ran quickly across the street, toward the King house.

"What's she going over there for?" Carter asked.

"I don't know," Fielder said. "Mrs. King did have the girl over there the other day, playing with her boys. Maybe she's just going over there to hang out."

"Seems kind of secretive about it," Lopez said. "I think we should stop her."

Fielder, as the senior agent, was the one in charge. "I don't think it's bad for her to be at Mrs. King's house. We know who she is, and she works for us. She may have even sent her over there herself."

"Then, why wouldn't she take her over herself?" Carter said. "Why let her go alone if she's worried about her safety?"

Fielder had to admit that it was a good question.

"I'll check it out," Fielder said. "You two stay with the van and continue watching the house. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Tailing a little girl to her friends' house was pretty high on the list of the most ridiculous things Fielder had had to do since he joined the Agency, but Fielder was so bored that it sounded better than sitting in the van. At least, it would give him a chance to stretch his legs.

As Fielder shuffled along through the drizzle toward the King house, he figured that he'd probably find the Antonia sitting in front of the tv with Amanda's kids, watching whatever afterschool program was popular these days. Probably some kind of cartoon show or maybe that channel with the music videos, if Mrs. King had cable. Fielder didn't know much about kids, but he knew that tv was big with them. What else would they be doing on a rainy day when they couldn't play outside?

At first, Fielder thought that he'd ring the bell and make up some excuse to get Amanda's mother to let him into the house for a few minutes. He'd never met Mrs. West, but she'd become something of an Agency joke after everyone had tired of making housewife jokes about Mrs. King. A couple of years ago, she'd actually fallen in love with a Russian defector who had lived in her neighborhood temporarily. Before that, she'd accidentally hit a carful of assassins while having a driving lesson. Fielder had even heard rumors that she'd almost been assassinated because she'd accidentally bought a book of encrypted information at a used book shop but that she'd been too clueless to even notice. He could believe it. If it was true that the woman hadn't realized during the last few years that her daughter had joined the Agency and had daily dealings in the world of espionage, she was probably a clueless pushover. He could probably tell her anything, and she'd believe it.

But then, Fielder had another thought. With Scarecrow and Mrs. King being so paranoid about everything these days, maybe Mrs. West was paranoid, too. He didn't want to spend the afternoon trying to concoct some ridiculous story to convince a grandmother to let him into her house just to find out if the neighbor girl was visiting. He could just go and have a look through the windows and see for himself. It would take less time, and Mrs. West was so clueless that she'd never notice him anyway. She was probably busy with her knitting or crossword puzzles, and the kiddies would have their eyes glued to the tv screen. Piece of cake!

The first window he looked in, at the front of the house, didn't help. There was no one in the front room.

"They must be at the back of the house," Fielder thought, circling around the side.

As he did so, he passed by the detached garage. There were odd sounds coming from inside. When he heard the sounds of clanking chains, he figured that someone must be working on Mrs. King's car. Then, there came a high, unearthly wail and the sound of a man's maniacal laughter. Was that a girl's scream he heard?

Fielder tried the side door to the garage and found it unlocked. He looked inside, checking to see if anyone was standing near the door. He couldn't see anyone. He couldn't see anything. All around him was blackness. What was going on?

The strange sounds continued. There was a loud creaking, followed by the hooting of an owl. An owl in daytime? It was dark because of the rain, but the sun hadn't set quite yet. A woman wept, and then there was the sound of an electric zap.

Cautiously, Fielder entered the garage, stepping slowly into the blackness. He reached out a hand to touch it, and realized that he was surrounded by black curtains. Carefully, he parted them to reveal . . . more blackness and more curtains. A wolf howled and there was an eerie cackling, like . . . like a witch at Halloween? Underneath those sounds, Fielder heard the voices of children. He couldn't see them, but they were somewhere nearby, talking in hushed tones.

He grinned in the darkness. He thought that he understood. Amanda must have let her kids take over the garage so they could watch a movie with their friends or something. It was close to Halloween. It must be some kind of monster movie.

Satisfied that he knew where the Petrescu girl was, even if he couldn't actually see her, Fred turned and fumbled around at the curtains, trying to find the place where he'd come in. That was went he tripped.

There was a cord, coming from a place he couldn't see, stretched out along the base of the curtains. He caught his foot on it, and something that felt like a pile of empty cardboard boxes fell on him.

"Did you hear that?" a boy's voice asked.

"Hear what?" a girl asked.

Okay, so Antonia Petrescu was here. Fielder knew that he better beat it out of there before they spotted him. He shook the cord off his feet and groped his way to the garage door. Behind him, there was the sound of more chains clanking, the groans of some kind of hideous monster, and the sound of children's damp sneakers squeaking slightly on the smooth concrete floor of the garage. The last sound was the one that worried him. Just as he reached the door, it opened.

"Jamie, dinner is going to be late. I brought you a-Aaah!" An older woman screamed right in Fielder's face.

In a panic, he pushed past her and ran for the van.

"It's those men again!" Dotty West cried. "Help! Police!"

Something hard hit him in the back as he raced down the driveway. Hot liquid splashed on him and soaked through his jacket. Instead of making him stop, it made him run harder. Fielder practically catapulted himself into the back of the van.

"Drive!" he shouted, pulling off his jacket.

"What happened?" asked Carter.

"She spotted me, and she wants to call the police. Just drive!"

"What about our stakeout?"

"It's over if the police catch us! Now, drive!"

Lopez slid into the driver's seat and started the van.

"What about the Petrescus?" Carter asked. "Where's the girl?"

"She's okay, and Scarecrow can take care of things until we can send the next shift. We'll have to get a different vehicle for next time. What the heck did that woman throw at me?"

"Mrs. King's mother threw something at you?"

Fred Fielder's jacket smelled like chocolate. For some reason, there was also a marshmallow stuck to the back.

SMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMK

Mr. and Mrs. Petrescu were very angry with their daughter when they found her standing on the King driveway with a distraught Mrs. West and a confused Jamie.

"What do you mean, sneaking out of the house without telling us?" Doina demanded.

"You were talking," Antonia said sullenly. "I just wanted to come and help Jamie with the sound effects for the haunted house."

"We were copying sounds from the sound effects tapes I got at the library," Jamie explained. "We wanted to pick out the best ones and arrange them-"

"You should know better than to go off by yourself," Anton said, interrupting Jamie, "especially after what happened this afternoon."

"It was awful!" Dotty said. "Did you see that man, Lee? He was there, hiding in the garage! I think we should call the police immediately!"

Lee had seen it. They had just come out of the house, looking for Antonia, when Fred Fielder had come running down the street like the devil was after him. Then, security team in the van just took off. Lee was going to have a word with Billy about this.

"He could have hurt the children!" Dotty cried. "The poor things are terrified."

Oddly, Jamie and Antonia weren't terrified. Mr. and Mrs. Petrescu looked scared, and Amanda looked worried, although probably not for the same reason. Antonia looked . . . suspicious? The girl's dark eyes were narrowed, and her gaze traveled to each of the adults in turn.

Lee glanced at Jamie and was surprised to see him looking back at him, his gaze calm, steady, and oddly blank. What had Jamie seen? Had he gotten a good look at the man who ran away, good enough to know that it wasn't one of the men who had tried to grab Antonia at the school?

"Are you okay, Jamie?" Lee asked gently.

"I'm fine," Jamie said. His voice was expressionless, and Lee had the strange feeling that Jamie was studying him, trying to gauge his reaction.

"I think we should get the kids inside," Lee said. "I'll take care of calling the police."

While Dotty gave everyone hot chocolate and invited the Petrescus to stay for dinner and Philip tried to pry the details of what happened out of his grandmother and Antonia, lamenting that he'd missed all the excitement, Lee went upstairs to Amanda's room to "call the police" in private. In fact, he called the Agency.

"I don't know what happened, but Fielder not only spooked Amanda's mother and the kids, he abandoned his post!" Lee complained after updating Billy on the situation. "I want someone down here right now, Billy! The Petrescu house is unguarded, and Antonia somehow disabled the security alarm on her window with wires and bubble gum!"

"Wires and bubble gum?" Billy asked.

Lee sighed. "I can't explain it, Billy. Just send someone, okay? And, can you send someone to child-proof the security system better so Antonia can't mess with it again?"

"If she figured out how to hot-wire the thing with wires and bubble gum, I don't think child-proofing it is the right term," Billy said.

"I know. I hope her parents can knock some sense into the kid's head," Lee grumbled. "She's not a little kid, and if she's determined to sneak out, she's smart enough to manage it, one way or another. The best we can do is try to make her understand that she's putting herself in danger if she does."

"I know," Billy said. "Between what Francine found out and what Anton told you, it's enough for us to take this Adrian in. She called in Chen to help her investigate the hotel, and they found something interesting on the fifth floor. Stefan and Vasile aren't there, but there are signs that they've been there. Hopefully, Adrian can tell us where they're hiding out."

"You know, it might not be a bad idea to get Anton in on the questioning," Lee said. "Adrian is, or at least was, his friend. He may be able to get him to talk or having him there may put more pressure on Adrian. But I don't want to leave Doina and Antonia without protection. They're here at Amanda's now, but they'll have to go home sometime, and Amanda has her family to consider."

"Help will be there soon. Why did Antonia sneak out in the first place?" Billy asked. "Did she say?"

"She said she went to go help Jamie work on the haunted house," Lee said, "but I think it's more than just that. I noticed she took the wires she used from Jamie's stash, so I think this was more than just a whim she had this afternoon. I think she's been planning this for awhile."

"You think that she was planning to run away or something?"

"No," Lee said slowly. "Not quite. I think that she was going to come back She didn't take anything with her. It sounds weird, but I think she wanted to see what would happen if she did it."

"Just testing the security?"

"Maybe, but I think she was really testing her parents."

"Some teenage rebellion thing?"

"Kind of, but it may be more complicated than that. I think I'll let Amanda delve into this one. She has better instincts for this kind of thing."

"How are Amanda's kids? You said that Antonia was with Jamie when Fred spooked them. Is he okay?"

"I don't know," Lee said. "He's acting a little weird. I think he might have seen something that his grandmother didn't see, but I don't know what. I'm going to try to talk to him later, when we can get some time alone."

"Let me know how that goes. I'll have the new security team alert you when they arrive."

"Tell one of them to come to Amanda's house and pretend to be a plainclothes policeman," Lee said. "Her family is expecting one to come. He'll have to hear them all talk about what's been happening around here, but that's not bad. Then, he can escort the Petrescus home."

When Lee hung up the phone to go downstairs and join the others for dinner, he heard a noise at Amanda's bedroom door. He opened it swiftly and caught a glimpse of Jamie heading downstairs. Lee had the uncomfortable feeling that he'd been spying on him.

All through dinner, Jamie and Antonia were quiet. Dotty and Philip didn't notice because they were busy talking. Dotty thought that Amanda ought to help establish a neighborhood watch program

"If we get everyone involved," she said, "that should stop things like this from happening in the future. The neighborhoods with high crime rates are the ones where the neighbors don't do anything to report what's happening. We all have to be vigilant!"

Philip was talking about what he'd do if he came across one of those mysterious men. "He'd be sorry for messing with me!"

"Don't you go trying to fight anyone," Amanda warned him sternly. "One boy against two grown men isn't a fair fight."

"Aw, mom, I wouldn't hurt them that badly."

"Philip, I mean it! This is no joking matter. Men like that can be very dangerous. If you see them, call for help, don't try to take them on by yourself."

Jamie was silent. He just kept looking from his mother to Lee and back again. Just watching. So was Antonia, although she was really watching her parents.

When dinner was over, Lee started to help Amanda clear the table. He whispered a quick word in her ear about Antonia, and Amanda agreed to talk to her. Lee called everyone else over to watch tv until the "plainclothes police" arrived, and Amanda asked Antonia to give her a hand.

Antonia gave her a look that said that she knew why Amanda was really keeping her from watching tv with the others.

"I suppose you know that you shouldn't have sneaked out today," Amanda started.

Antonia nodded.

"Your parents were very worried. We were all worried."

She nodded again.

"Why did you do it?"

"I wanted to see Jamie and help with the haunted house."

"The real reason, Antonia."

Amanda had expected Antonia to look away and try to clam up, but she didn't.

"You tell me," Antonia said.

"What does that mean?" Amanda asked.

"You tell me because my parents won't."

"Tell you what?"

"Anything!"

Amanda was really puzzled. "You know what your father does for a living, and you know that he can't talk about it."

"And he can't talk about what happened to me this afternoon either, can he? Is that a government secret, too? My mother won't talk about it either, and she's not government."

Amanda couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl. Her parents had tried to shield her from so many things for much of her life. She didn't even have any brothers or sisters to talk to when the adults just wanted to talk among themselves. All she had was her parents, and she must have felt truly excluded when they kept things from her. But, she was growing up, and it would be impossible to shield her from everything forever.

"That kind of thing happens to you a lot, doesn't it? Some things are difficult, even painful to explain," Amanda said. "Sometimes, people want to explain things but don't really know how."

"You could say that," Antonia said. "Mom just said that what happened today really scared her and that she wants me to be extremely careful but not to talk about it to anyone. She didn't even want me to talk about it to Philip and Jamie anymore, and they were there! I asked her what she was going to do about it, and she just said that she'd talk to my father. Then, you came and she sent me upstairs to my room so she could talk to you without me."

"So, you ran off to get back at your mother for not talking to you? You wanted to make her worry?"

"I wanted to talk to somebody. I went to talk to Jamie."

"But, you planned it out ahead of time," Amanda said. "It took you longer than this afternoon to figure out how to beat the security system."

Now, Antonia did look embarrassed. "I thought that I might have to do something like that sometime. Whenever mom gets worried, she doesn't let me go anywhere or do anything. She and dad just talk to each other, and I have to stay in my room and play. I'm getting a little old to stay in my room and play."

She was, Amanda had to admit, and playing by herself in her room wasn't going to help her feel better. Still, the mother in Amanda had to say, "I know all this secrecy is hard on you, but your parents don't keep things from you to hurt you. They're really just trying to keep you from worrying."

Antonia looked her straight in the eye. "Is that why you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Keep things from Philip and Jamie."

Amanda felt cold all over. "Why do you say that?"

"Because Jamie doesn't know that you work for the government," Antonia said. "When I was talking to him this afternoon, he didn't seem to know what I was talking about."

"Oh, no," Amanda thought.

Meanwhile, in the drizzling darkness outside, two figures in dark raincoats studied the house from across the street. They'd left their car down the block. Tonight wasn't the night to act, but they wanted to get a look at the situation. They'd seen the small figure in the pink jacket run across the road to her friends' house. They'd seen the Agency men drive away. When everyone had gone inside, they'd had a look in the garage, where the children had been playing. They'd learned a lot, far more than the Agency man had. They now had a plan.


	18. A Tale of Two Antonias

**Chapter 18: A Tale of Two Antonias**

Agency men picked up Adrian Dalca on Tuesday. There hadn't really been any difficulty in doing so. He never expected his old friend Anton to turn him in to the government. Partly because he hadn't really done anything yet.

"You can't arrest me!" Adrian fumed in an Agency holding cell. "I haven't done anything. This is wrongful arrest and imprisonment!"

"Oh, is it?" Lee asked. "How does conspiring in the abduction of a minor sound?"

"No one has been kidnapped," Adrian said.

"Yet," Francine said. She was sitting next to Lee, participating in the questioning of Adrian. Billy sat in the next room with Anton Petrescu, listening to everything. "But, that's because your friends screwed up."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"It was a clumsy attempt at kidnapping," Lee said. "Really amateurish. The girl knew your friends weren't who they said they were."

"What girl?"

"Antonia."

"No one has abducted Antonia Negrescu. She had breakfast at the hotel today and will be going out sightseeing with her father later."

"I'm sure that's true," Lee said. "Her abduction is scheduled for Halloween night, isn't it?"

Adrian sat silent and unmoving.

Lee continued. "We checked on Mihail Negrescu's schedule. He was scheduled to attend a costume ball on Halloween night. His daughter would be left alone in their suite. What was the plan, Adrian? Take a snack to the lonely little girl while daddy is out? Your friends, Stefan and Vasile, bought sleeping pills. They made sure that they were safe to give to a young teen. After they drugged her, they'd just have to get her out of the hotel."

"Or would they?" Francine practically purred. She smiled like shark at Adrian, whose eyes flickered nervously in her direction.

"I saw them buying tools and electronics equipment," Lee said. "What were they for? Disabling the hotel's cameras and security system?"

"Of course," Francine said. "They wouldn't want to be seen taking the girl to the room you'd prepared for them, would they?"

"Stefan and Vasile were experimenting the other night. They wanted to disable the security system on the fifth floor, but one of them made a dumb mistake. He started messing with the thermostat and nearly got caught."

"There were legitimate workmen at the hotel, repainting rooms on the floor above the one where Mihail Negrescu and his daughter are staying. But, that's not the full story, is it, Adrian?" Francine said. "Not all of the rooms supposedly being renovated have actually had any work done in them, and Potomac Renovations has informed us that their work is nearly finished even though you have two of those rooms still labeled as being 'under construction' for another week."

"That's why Stefan and Vasile Petrescu needed you, wasn't it?" Lee said. "Not only could you help them to get into the hotel so that you would have access to Antonia, but you could arrange for an empty room where Antonia Petrescu could be kept. Wouldn't that be something? Negrescu starts a search for his daughter, and she's right under his nose all the time. Or, should I say, over his head, on the floor above?"

Adrian said nothing. He stared at his hands, which were folded on the table.

"We've inspected the rooms, Adrian," Francine said. "Someone has been staying in one of the rooms. We found men's clothes there. Some of them were made to duplicate the uniforms worn by the renovations company. We also found the bottle of sleeping pills. Sooner or later, Stefan and Vasile will come back. Our people are waiting for them. If you tell us your story before they tell us theirs, things could go a lot better for you."

Adrian still wasn't saying anything. Like before, he'd been prepared to face questions about Stefan and Vasile, and although Lee thought that Francine was right when she'd first suggested that Antonia Negrescu had been their real target all along, Lee was going to have a difficult time proving it if Adrian didn't talk, in spite of what they'd found in that hotel room.

"You know, it was interesting that you decided right away that it we were talking about Antonia Negrescu when we mentioned that someone tried to kidnap 'Antonia,'" Lee said. "Why did you assume it was her?"

Now, Adrian looked puzzled. "What other Antonia is there? She is the only girl of that name staying at the hotel."

"We know that you were conspiring to kidnap her," Lee said, "but the girl who came the closest to getting kidnapped was Antonia Petrescu."

Adrian shifted nervously. "I don't know that name."

"Her father says you do," Lee said, his voice hard. "He says that he sent you a picture the last time he sent you a Christmas card. Would you like us to bring him in here to say so himself?"

Adrian glanced over at the mirror on the wall, and Lee could tell that he was wondering who might be on the other side of the one-way glass.

"Instead of sitting tight and waiting for the right moment to kidnap Antonia Negrescu as planned," Francine suggested, "your pals decided to complicate matters. They spotted their brother Anton and his family at the airport. They knew that if Anton had spoken to anyone in the Washington area, it had to be you. And, that's when you betrayed your old friend."

"I haven't betrayed anyone!" Adrian said, looking back and forth between his questioners and the mirror. "Is that why I am here? Because Anton accuses me of something?"

"You told Stefan and Vasile where to find Anton," Lee said. "More importantly, you told them where to find his daughter."

"No!"

"You were the only one who knew!" Lee said. "He trusted you, and you betrayed him! You betrayed his little girl!" The thought of it made Lee want to get his fingers around Adrian's throat and squeeze, but he reigned those impulses in.

"It isn't true!"

"Should we bring Anton in here?" Lee asked. "Should we ask him what he told you and what you said to him the last time you spoke?"

Now, Adrian was nervous.

"You made plane reservations for four people," Francine said. "We've been looking into your bank account, and in the last week, you purchased tickets on a flight to France for four people, two adults and two children," Francine said calmly. "Stefan and Vasile were going to take the girls to Europe. What were you going to do with them then?"

"I wasn't going to do anything!" Adrian said. "Stefan and Vasile-" He stopped talking, realizing he was giving everything away.

"Kidnapping is a serious offense," Lee said, "Stefan and Vasile were leaving the country. You would have been left to take the blame here. What do you think the two of them are going to say when we start questioning them?"

"It was their idea! I wanted no part of it." Adrian half turned in his chair so that he was speaking toward the mirror.

"Go on," Francine said.

"You're right. Stefan and Vasile approached me months ago and asked for my help. Some friends of theirs helped them to falsify their passports so that they could come to this country. Don't ask me which friends because I don't know. They knew that I worked for a hotel in New York. I had told them that I was considering transferring to a job here in Washington D.C. because of the higher pay. They urged me to take it because it would help them with their plans."

"Which were?"

"As you said, they wanted to kidnap Antonia Negrescu. They knew that her father was bringing her here. Mihail Negrescu is responsible for the deaths of many people fighting to free our country. He has been getting perilously close to uncovering important members of the resistance movement. Stefan and Vasile wanted to put pressure on him to drop his investigations."

"What were they going to do with Antonia Negrescu?"

"We were going to hide her at the hotel for a few days. We figured that it would be the last place anyone would look because she would have been abducted from there. Then, they were going to take her to France, and then to Romania."

"And then?"

"I suppose they would have let her go eventually, when they got what they wanted. I really don't know."

"Most kidnappers eventually kill their victims," Lee said in a low, menacing tone. "If they were worried about Mihail Negrescu learning about members of their group, why would they let her return home to tell him what she knew?"

Adrian shook his head. "If they wanted her dead, why take her home? They would have let her go."

"They would need to keep her alive for a time so they could provide proof to her father that they had her, pictures of her holding current newspapers, that kind of thing," Lee said. "But, once she was no longer useful to them . . ." He let Adrian finish the thought himself.

Adrian protested, "They never said anything about killing her!"

"Why would they?" Lee asked. "They told you just enough to get you to do what they wanted. And, they got you to tell them where to find their niece as a bonus."

"Well, they wouldn't hurt their niece," Adrian said. "She's . . . well, she's their niece!"

"But, they were going to take her to Europe, too, weren't they?"

Adrian nodded reluctantly. "They didn't tell me that at first. I found out after Anton called me to ask me if I knew why Stefan and Vasile were here. They had always resented it that their brother wouldn't join the fight to free Romania."

"So, what was going to happen to Antonia Petrescu?" Francine asked.

"They were going to take her home. She is a Romanian girl! She belongs to Romania."

"She belongs to her parents, who are here," Lee said.

"I didn't like the idea of kidnapping her, but I had already agreed to help them with Antonia Negrescu, so I had to agree to this, too. Besides, the girl has family in Romania," Adrian said. "They wouldn't harm her! They would take care of her! Stefan and Vasile knew that if Antonia went home to Romania, Anton and his wife would follow. They just wanted them to come back and fight for their country."

Lee was disgusted. Two Antonias. Two girls, about the same age, both with dark hair and dark eyes. Both targets because of people who wanted to manipulate their fathers, in one way or another. One of them probably would have been kept alive by her relatives. The other probably would have been killed eventually. This stooge who was part of it all either didn't realize or just didn't care. Maybe one Antonia was just as good as another to him, and one more or less in the world wouldn't make any difference in his eyes.

"This interview is over," Lee said.

He and Francine had all that they really needed from Adrian for the moment anyway.

"What about me?" Adrian asked. "What are you going to do with me?"

"That's not our decision," Lee said.

"I want a lawyer!" Adrian called after them as they left the room.

"What are you going to do with him?" Anton asked Lee and Francine.

"It's up to the courts now," Francine said. "Even attempted kidnapping is a serious charge, and there are two minors involved."

Anton sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I would never have told him anything about my family if I'd known that he was a threat to my daughter. Years ago, he was a good friend. Or, so I thought. You'll find my brothers and bring them in?"

"Yes," Lee said. "As far as we know, they haven't learned anything about Adrian's arrest, so they will probably return to the hotel to continue their plot."

"What will happen to Antonia Negrescu?" Anton asked. "Does her father know about this?"

"We've alerted him to the threat, but we didn't tell him anything about you or your daughter," Francine assured him. "As soon as we told him, he immediately canceled the rest of his visit here, and he and his daughter are currently on their way home. His Antonia is safe, and he has no idea that you're even here."

Anton shook his head. "I have to admit that I have hated Mihail Negrescu for years. Stefan and Vasile are correct that he is the tool of an oppressive government. If the plot had been against him alone, I might have even agreed to it as Adrian did. But, Antonia Negrescu is just a child. She isn't at fault for anything that her father has done, and she shouldn't have to suffer for it. I'm just glad that her father loves her and will protect her."

"She might grow up to become a better person than her father," Lee suggested. "Children have many possibilities."

Francine gave him an odd look but said nothing.

Anton looked worried again. "Suppose Stefan and Vasile have learned that Adrian has been arrested and that the Negrescus are gone? They would know that I probably informed on them. They might come after Antonia again."

"I don't think it will come to that," Francine said, "but the Agency will protect you and your family."


	19. The Growing Storm

**Chapter 19: The Growing Storm**

The rest of the week passed quickly, and there was still no sign of Stefan and Vasile. The Agency wasn't sure whether the two men could have fled upon discovering that their cohort had been arrested or if they were still lurking somewhere in the area, and Anton was understandably nervous. At Amanda's insistence, Antonia's parents explained the situation to her, telling her about her uncles for the first time in her life. She was shocked because she had believed that the men who tried to grab her were enemy agents from Romania. She had been aware that her father had enemies in Romania, but her parents had never told them that some of them were relatives.

"I suppose that I had always hoped that things would change and that I would be reconciled with my brothers," Anton said. "But, I think it's too late for that now."

Now that her parents had finally confided in her, Antonia didn't make any further attempts to run off on her own. She stayed close to home except for school and her visits to the King house. The Agency security team watched over the school and the Petrescu house, and her parents always walked her over to the King house under the watchful eyes of Lee or Amanda. At first, Antonia's mother wasn't sure if it was a good idea for her to continue with the haunted house project, but Anton persuaded her that it was good for Antonia to have friends and that she couldn't be anywhere safer with Lee helping the children with the project.

Jamie was polite but distant for the rest of the week leading up to Halloween. Lee continued to help the boys and their friends put the finishing touches on the haunted house, but no matter what Lee tried, he couldn't get Jamie alone to talk to him. It was deliberate. Jamie didn't want to talk to him.

"He won't talk to me, either," Amanda said. "He denies that there's anything wrong, but you can tell that there is. I'm not sure exactly what Antonia told him about us, but I think he believes it."

"Why shouldn't he believe it?" Lee grumbled. "It's probably the truth. I wish we'd thought to tell her not to talk to the boys about us because they don't know. Didn't know."

"It wouldn't have done any good," Amanda said. "Antonia is tired of her parents' secrecy. She probably would have made it a point to tell Philip too if she'd realized that neither of them knew anything. As far as I can tell, Jamie hasn't talked to Philip about it yet."

That was puzzling. Lee wasn't sure why Jamie hadn't told Philip. But, Philip acted perfectly normal. He told all of their friends about the strange men at the school and then the man who'd been hiding in the garage. The others kids were nervous about strange men lurking around, and asked Philip, Jamie, and Antonia all kinds of questions about what they'd seen. Philip was eager to talk about the excitement, but Jamie and Antonia both claimed that they hadn't seen very much and didn't want to talk about any of it.

Jamie continued watching Lee and Amanda like a hawk. Amanda said that she'd had the feeling a few times that Jamie had picked up phone extensions and listened at doors, spying on the two of them. When Lee and Amanda talked privately, they were careful to do so only when Jamie was safely at school.

Jamie and Antonia had become closer than ever, constantly hanging around each other while working on the haunted house project. That was part of the reason why Lee had a difficult time getting Jamie alone to talk to him. The other reason was that Philip kept hovering around Antonia, trying to get her attention. The other kids seemed content to give Jamie a little space to be with his new "girlfriend," but Philip still seemed determined to get Antonia to like him.

On Wednesday afternoon, when the kids got together to put the finishing touches on their costumes and the haunted house, Philip kept trying to suggest things he and Antonia could do together to try to get her away from Jamie.

"Want to give me a hand with my costume?" Philip asked.

"I thought your costume was ready," Antonia said, watching Jamie test out the system of switches he'd rigged up to control the lights. He was up in the loft, and she was telling him how the lights were working from below.

"I see the yellow one now!" Antonia called.

"Okay!" Jamie's distant voice said. "Watch for blue!"

"It almost is, but I'd like your opinion on it," Philip said. "Do you think I should wear the cape or not?"

The lights changed, and Antonia's white shirt began to glow.

"I see blue, and the black light is working, too!" Antonia called. Then, she turned to Philip and shrugged. "Whatever you want. You could ask Alice. She's good with costumes."

Alice was nearby, listening but trying to act like she wasn't. She was putting the final touches on the monster head. In the end, she'd decided against using fake blood on herself because it wouldn't look that great under the lights that Jamie had chosen. Instead of looking red and scary, it would just look kind of black, like she'd spilled chocolate syrup on herself. But, it was okay, because the black lights allowed her to play more with colors that would glow, and she liked that. She was adding a few touches of neon paint to the monster head to make the eyes glow.

Lee was nearby, helping Andy with the headless costume. He had brought his old football shoulder pads and stuffed them with extra padding to give Andy artificial shoulders that would be about the height of his head. It was a trick he'd learned back when he'd played football in college. One of his roommates did the same thing for a Halloween party they went to.

"With this coat over your shoulders, it will look like you don't have a head," Lee said, helping Andy to adjust the old black trench coat he was wearing. "We can leave this button undone, so you can see out through here."

"It's hard to hear anything in this!" Andy said. "I feel like I'm wearing earmuffs and my ears are stuffed with cotton!"

Lee couldn't remember what his roommate did to get around that problem. It was just as well, because Andy totally missed what the other kids were saying.

"That's the green light!" Antonia called.

"It should be red," Jamie said from above. "Wait, I think I got the wrong one."

"Maybe he's red/green colorblind," Philip joked to Antonia, "and he only just found out."

"Jamie and I are busy," Antonia said, "and you don't have to be mean about it."

Philip seemed taken aback. "Sorry. I was only joking."

"Jokes are funny," Antonia said. "I'm not laughing."

"Sorry. Do you want to go help me set up the-"

"No. I'm busy helping Jamie."

"I just thought-"

"Red light!"

"Oh, come on, leave them alone!" Alice finally spoke up. "You don't get people to like you by being a pest."

Philip stared at her.

"Believe me, I know," Alice added more quietly. Then, she got up, taking the monster head with her.

Philip just stared after her in shock.

"Did somebody say something?" Andy said.

"No," Lee said. "Come on, Philip, help me with Andy's costume. I want to make sure he can get on and off the table like this."

Philip looked at Antonia once more, but she was staring fixedly up at the ceiling, the lights, and Jamie. He went to go help Lee and Andy.

Philip just worked in silence for the rest of the day, except for one point when he tried to talk to Alice, but Alice didn't have much to say to him, either. The only words she had for him were, "Wear the cape. It makes the outfit."

To Lee's surprise, Philip actually looked hurt. He just said, "I just wanted to say that you're not a pest. And, I'm glad you're here, helping out."

He turned and walked away, and for a moment, Alice looked like she wanted to go and say something to him, but then she caught Lee looking at her and didn't. Lee turned and watched Tom rehearsing his mad scientist act with Andy the Headless Monster. He considered having another talk with Philip later but decided not to. Eventually, he'd get over the embarrassment of his mistake with Antonia, and from what he'd seen, it looked like Philip had learned something from it. It would be better to just let the lesson sink in for now. Philip would work things out on his own.

Most of the week was rainy, and Halloween turned out to especially so. With no sign of it letting up, the kids were afraid that there would be no trick-or-treating.

"Well, you've decided that you're too old for trick-or-treating, right?" Dotty said as the boys and their friends moped around the house around lunch time. "You can just have fun with your haunted house."

Antonia and Alice were playing checkers on the floor under Lee's watchful eyes. The boys were mostly just sitting around, listless. Every so often, Alice would sneak a glance at Philip, and then quickly look away. She and Philip seemed to be getting along well enough now, but there was a kind of awkwardness between them because of what they'd said to each other earlier in the week. Everyone else pretended not to notice. Jamie still hovered pretty close to Antonia and tried to avoid being alone with Lee.

"But, if there are no trick-or-treaters, there won't be any customers for the haunted house!" Mark complained.

"I don't think anyone is going to go out in the rain like this," Tom agreed, looking out the window. "Not much of anyone, anyway."

"The haunted house is indoors," Philip said thoughtfully. "It wouldn't be affected by the rain."

"Yeah," Jamie said, "but if no one even goes out, no one's going to know about it. We can't even hang up the signs that we were going to put up to advertise it."

"We don't need to!" Philip said, suddenly brightening. "We'll invite people over for a Halloween party, and the haunted house will be the star attraction!"

"Philip!" Amanda said. "You can't charge party guests to go through your haunted house."

"No," Philip said regretfully. "We can't charge them money. But, if we can have some guests over for a party, at least our hard work won't completely go to waste. Besides, it's better than everyone just being stuck inside for the evening. Everyone else is probably bummed out by the rain, too."

It wasn't a bad suggestion, and Lee was pleased to see that Philip was thinking about his friends' feelings and not just the money they'd hoped to earn from their project.

"Well, I suppose it would be alright to have a few friends over," Dotty said.

"We don't have a lot of provisions, though," Amanda said. "We didn't plan for this."

"Oh, that's okay!" Philip said, brightening. "We'll take care of it!"

"Yeah!" Andy said. "My mom made cookies the other day. I can see if she'll let me bring some."

"I could bring candy," Mark offered. "My mom said that my dad bought too much anyway, and since we're not going to have a lot of trick-or-treaters this year . . ."

"I can make punch," Alice said. "I'll make some that looks like bat's blood!" She grinned and cackled.

"We have some tapes of Halloween music that we can bring over, too," Tom said. "Maybe a couple of movies."

"And I can do popcorn balls!" Philip said. "Or maybe brownies."

Lee had almost forgotten that Philip liked to cook.

"I'll give you a hand in the kitchen," Dotty offered.

Amanda looked a little worried, and Lee knew why. If the kids spent a quiet evening at home, it would be much easier to keep an eye on Antonia. But, if the only people coming by the house were just a few friends of the kids, it wouldn't be so bad, Lee thought. Certainly, it would be much better than if strangers were coming to visit the haunted house.

Lee doubted that Antonia would stray far from the others during the party. For one thing, it was raining out, and there was nowhere for her to go, and for another, she'd been staying pretty close to Jamie lately. He'd noticed that the two of them were silent while the others were talking about the party. They seemed to be having the same silent conference with their eyes that Lee was now having with Amanda. They were aware of the possible threat to Antonia, and even though Jamie was avoiding the subject with everyone, he seemed to have placed himself in the role of her protector.

Lee gave Amanda a slight nod and a little smile to indicate that he thought the party idea was okay.

Amanda said, "Okay, you can invite some people over, but not too many, remember. There are already seven of you, and the house can't hold too many people."

"How many can we invite?" Philip asked.

"Well, if each of you invited one other person, that would bring it up to fourteen people," Amanda said.

"I don't know anyone else here yet," Antonia said. "I wouldn't know who to ask."

"How many people can you have in the haunted house during a single tour?" Lee asked. "Remember, the rooms aren't that big."

"We figured on having groups of about four or five at a time," Philip said.

"Why not just ask five people to the party, then?" Dotty said. "That would make twelve of you, and that sounds like a good number."

"I was hoping for more," Philip said. "That means that there will be less guests for the haunted house than the people who made it."

"It might be better to keep the party smaller and just do one tour through it for all of your guests than to try to have more guests and do separate tours for different groups," Lee said. "Some of the guests might get bored if they had to wait to go through the haunted house while the first group is doing it, and the first group might spoil the effect by telling the others what to expect."

"I guess so," Philip said.

"Do you guys think you can settle on five guests?" Amanda asked.

Philip handed Jamie a pad of paper and a pencil so he could make a list of things people should bring to the party and guests to invite while everyone else gave suggestions. Jamie did it because he was used to being the official note-taker for the group, but he and Antonia were still exchanging silent glances.

Outside, the rain grew worse. In the distance, there was the rumble of thunder.


	20. Halloween Party

**Chapter 20: Halloween Party**

In the end, there were thirteen guests at the party. One of the girls Alice asked brought her cousin with her. Dotty said that thirteen sounded unlucky, but Amanda quickly pointed out that it wasn't really thirteen at dinner because all of the adults would be there, too. Lee suspected that the boys were getting to the age where they wouldn't consider an extra girl to be unlucky at all.

In fact, Philip had magnanimously suggested that Alice invite two girls from her softball team so that she and Antonia wouldn't be the only girls there with a bunch of boys. Mark had seconded the motion and grinned when she mentioned the third girl who wanted to come. None of the other boys protested. Lee smirked. If any of the boys had lingering doubts about letting girls be involved in their projects, he had the feeling that they were starting to see the benefits.

Lee was relieved that Philip's earlier crush, Kelly Sharp, wasn't on the list of invites. Lee overheard Jamie ask Philip about her, and Philip just shrugged and said, "I decided not to ask her. If she doesn't like haunted houses, she won't like this party, and she'd just be a drag."

Lee sent out for pizza to go with all the snacks the kids were putting together. It wasn't as healthy as what Amanda and Dotty would have preferred, but at least it wasn't sugary.

After a quick, private conference with Amanda, they'd decided to invite Antonia's parents over to "help with the party." In reality, they thought it would be better if Antonia and her parents could all be in the same house during this stormy night so that the security team could keep an eye on them all.

Dotty enjoyed chatting with the Petrescus, while Lee appointed himself to door duty, letting in the guests and paying for the pizzas when they arrived. He wanted to monitor everyone coming in himself. He wasn't worried about the kids coming to visit, but he wanted to keep an eye on all adults with them. One father who came to drop off his two sons said that he was so glad that they were hosting this party because his boys were starting to get on his nerves, cooped up in the house, eating candy. Lee just chuckled as he let them inside.

Amanda moved around the party, checking on everyone and everything. She paid special attention to where Antonia was, although her parents also watched her from across the room, giving her space to talk to the other children. Lee felt a little odd that the other adults were dressed in casual clothes, and he had a sport coat on, but there was no easier way for him to conceal the shoulder holster he wore. Hopefully, the security team outside would spot any intruders before they entered the house, but he knew that he was the last line of defense if they didn't.

He leaned casually against the wall, wondering whether they were doing the right thing. Was this party a good idea? Suppose that Stefan and Vasile did come for Antonia. Could these other kids be hurt if they got in the way? What about Amanda and the boys?

Amanda knew and accepted the risks of their relationship long ago, but there had always been the question of Philip and Jamie. They were becoming a family, but they didn't know the risks associated with that. At least, Philip didn't. Lee was pretty sure that Jamie was getting the idea. Their friends had no clue at all. Maybe it wasn't fair to take that risk. On the other hand, maybe Antonia was safer in a house full of people.

Lee watched the kids having fun around him. He could debate about it all night in his head, but the fact was that the party was started, and he had a responsibility to keep his eyes open and his mind alert to protect everyone. Jamie was looking at him from across the room, still watching him as he had been over the last few days.

"We should have told the boys long before this," Lee thought. "It would have been difficult enough for them to find out without having to learn it from the girl-next-door whose father just happened to be a Romanian defector." He wondered whether Jamie would ever really trust him again.

Jamie turned his attention to Antonia, offering her a cookie from a tray.

Not all the kids coming wore costumes, at least not full ones. They were all ages eleven to fourteen, and the older ones in particular didn't want to seem too little-kiddish by dressing up too much. But, most of them entered into the Halloween spirit anyway with a prop or two. A kid named Jeff in Philip's grade came with just a long black cape. It turned out that he also had some cheap plastic vampire teeth, but they didn't fit in his mouth well, so they spent the rest of the party in his pocket. His younger brother, Ben, came in a trench coat with a magnifying glass, but the magnifying glass spent most of the party in his pocket, too, after everyone got tired of him trying to look at their faces really up close. A third boy, Adam, was Antonia's age, and he just had a black leather jacket. He said that he was one of the guys from Grease.

The three girls all came in costume, and a couple of them also brought extra treats. It turned out that Alice's softball team was made up of girls of different ages, so she invited another eleven-year-old and a twelve-year-old, who brought her thirteen-year-old cousin. They fit into the party very well, and Antonia enjoyed meeting some other girls. They even invited her to join their team when they had try-outs in the spring, and she said that she'd think about it.

The boys, except for the ones who'd worked on the haunted house, didn't mix too much with the girls, but they seemed interested in them. Jamie stuck to Antonia, and Philip and Mark were eager to talk to the other girls. Most of the other boys didn't seem to know what to say to them. Lee smiled when he saw the boys repeatedly glancing at the girls and whispering to each other. Eventually, they'd work up the courage to go over to them and say something. It would probably be something embarrassing, or at least, they'd think it was. Ah, memories!

Everything was going well so far, except for the weather outside. The wind had picked up, and the thunder and lightning had gotten worse.

"Who wants to hear a ghost story?" Philip asked.

Some of the older boys groaned a bit, but the groans stopped when the girls seemed interested.

Philip turned off most of the lights and put a flashlight under his chin.

"This is the story of La Llorona . . ."

SMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMKSMK

Stefan and Vasile almost called off their plan. They knew that something was wrong when Adrian hadn't contacted them at the usual time. Even though he'd arranged things so that they could stay in the empty rooms of the hotel part of the time, it would have been too risky for them to spend all of their time there with the visiting Romanian dignitaries, especially Negrescu. Part of the time, they stayed at a cheap rooming house. They had been waiting to hear from Adrian to finalize their arrangements for Halloween night, but he had never called.

After making a few subtle inquiries, they'd learned that Adrian had been taken in by the authorities. Negrescu had also unexpectedly cancelled his engagements and left the country, taking his daughter with him. To Stefan and Vasile, that could only mean that someone had talked, and it didn't take them long to realize who that was.

"Adrian must have told Anton what we were planning," Stefan said. "Then, he betrayed Adrian to the authorities."

"The coward!" Vasile said. "What should we do? Return to Romania?"

"Not without Antonia," Stefan said. " _Our_ Antonia. It would be a disgrace to return empty-handed."

"What about Anton?"

"He may be a coward, but we can still use him. He wouldn't dare disobey us as long as we have Antonia."

Discovering that Antonia was participating in some kind of Halloween event at a neighbor's house was a bonus. They couldn't possibly get to her at school or at her own home with government agents keeping such a close watch on her, but they figured that at a friend's house, with things being more lax and plenty of other children running around in costume, Antonia would be much more vulnerable.

One thing they hadn't counted on was the weather. They knew enough about the tradition of trick-or-treating to understand that on Halloween night children would go from house to house, begging for treats. They had hoped that with so many people on the sidewalks in the neighborhood, no one would notice them. Perhaps even Antonia would participate, and they could grab her then. But, with the storm, everyone was staying inside.

"What are we going to do?" Vasile asked as they sat in their car down the block.

There were no children out in this weather, and the van currently parked in front of the house looked like one that they had seen outside of Anton's house.

After awhile, they started seeing other cars drive up and drop off children at the house.

"They're having a party," Stefan said. "I knew they were putting up those decorations in the garage for a reason."

"I don't see how we can even get close to the house," Vasile complained. "I think we should give it up."

"We may never get another chance!" Stefan said. "Things are changing in Romania, and it may be now or never. Anton has been neglecting his responsibilities too long. It's time for him to come home and serve his country as we have."

"This is crazy, Stefan! Antonia Negrescu, well, she was the daughter of our enemy. But, this is our niece!"

"So?"

"So, if we take her, Anton will hate us forever!"

"He can hate us if he wants, but he'll do what we say if we have the girl."

"You don't know that! And, what about the girl? She doesn't know us."

"She will soon."

"Suppose they've become American citizens? It would be one thing to take Romanian citizens home, but another to kidnap an American citizen. As you said, things are changing in Romania. Can we start off a new life for Romania with an international incident?"

"You agreed to this earlier."

"I'm having second thoughts."

"Then, you can stay in the car with your second thoughts! Just be ready to go when I return with the girl."

Stefan got out of the car and ducked behind the bushes that bordered the neighboring house. Vasile knew that Stefan would use those bushes for cover as he circled around to the back of the property and jumped over the fence in back of the house. But, then what? If it was raining, the girl wasn't going to come out of the house, and Stefan couldn't possibly go inside with all those people.

Vasile drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He hated it. He hadn't really wanted to do any of this in the first place, but Stefan insisted that it was all necessary for the cause. Vasile sometimes wondered whether it was really the cause that Stefan cared about or just making everyone else do what he wanted in the name of the cause. Maybe Anton had been right to get away when he did.

Vasile debated what to do. Part of him wanted to warn Anton, but he was a wanted man. He couldn't possibly go up to the house with agents watching.

He sat back, hoping that Stefan would realize the futility of what he was doing and come back.


	21. The Haunted House

**Chapter 21: The Haunted House**

The rain started to slacken a little as Philip finished his ghost story.

"And now," he said with a grand flourish, "prepare to meet the Wailing Woman in the Haunted House!"

The others didn't seem to mind too much that Philip had told the ghost story mainly about Antonia's character. He later said that it was because he didn't want to spoil the surprise of the headless monster in the mad scientist's lab and because the other characters in the haunted house were pretty straightforward.

The cast members for the haunted house were already in their costumes, except for Andy, who had left his fake shoulder pads in the mad scientist's chamber. Philip asked Lee to escort them outside so they could get into their positions before he started bringing their friends through the haunted house.

The kids carried flashlights with them as they made their way to the garage. There wouldn't be any lights inside until Jamie got up to the loft to turn them all on. Jamie had the flashlight that Lee had given him. Tom had a flashlight that he had brought from home, and Alice had Philip's. Lee unlocked the door to the garage to let everyone in.

Jamie headed off to the stairs to the loft, and everyone else went to their proper places. Lee followed Tom and Andy to the mad scientist's chamber and Tom helped Andy to get his shoulder pads on.

"Remember, you just lie there and wait until I hold up the fake head. Then, you get up to scare people," Tom told him.

"What?" Andy said. He was still having trouble hearing around his shoulder pads.

Tom said louder, "I said wait until you see the fake head! Then, get up and scare people!"

"Okay!" Andy said.

Lee shook his head and smiled at the boys.

The lights went on. The plasma globe positioned near Andy's head (the real one) started zapping, and the Christmas light mad scientist computer started blinking in its cheery, mad-sciencey way. Jamie was at his position in the loft, ready for action.

"Everyone ready?" Lee called.

There was a chorus of yeses, and Lee went to tell Philip that he could begin the tour of the haunted house.

Philip waited at the head of the group outside, wearing his magician's hat, a black cape with silver moons and stars that matched the hat, and a black mustache that Alice had drawn on his upper lip with a makeup stick.

When Lee reappeared, Philip turned to his audience and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen! You are about to enter into the Unknown! As your Guide to the Unknown, I assure you that nothing you see will harm you . . . or will it?" Philip cackled evilly.

The boys at the back of the group smirked and rolled their eyes, and the girls giggled nervously.

As Philip led the group inside, Lee looked around uneasily. The Agency van was still outside. The storm seemed to have passed, but somehow, things still felt off somehow. He thought about going down to the van to check on their status, but something told him not to. Antonia's parents were in the house with Amanda and Dotty, but Antonia was in the garage with the kids. If he left, even for a moment, she would unprotected, vulnerable.

Lee made up his mind. He went into the haunted house, after the kids.

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Stefan was nearby, watching. He had crouched by the back door of the house, listening to the boy's silly ghost story. Then, he had seen the children go to the garage in two groups.

The first group, he assumed were the actors, ready to play the parts of ghosts to scare the other children. Antonia would be one of those. There were only two girls in that group, one dressed as a witch and the other dressed as some kind of ghost, all in white. Which one was she?

The second group of children was led by a boy dressed as a magician of some sort. There was a man there, looking after the children, the same man Stefan had seen at the airport and at the hardware store and the electronics shop with his sons. If he hadn't been at the airport, Stefan would have thought that he was just another of his brother's neighbor. But, if he was there to meet Anton, he probably worked for the government in one way or another. He was probably the one who was responsible for getting the agents to keep an eye on Anton.

When Stefan had first learned that Anton had moved to this area, he hadn't imagined that they would actually have him living close to one of their own people. The man's presence was dangerous. Stefan hadn't counted on him being here tonight, and he'd been hoping for plenty of other people going from house to house, trick-or-treating, to provide a distraction.

The man stood alone outside the door to the garage. He looked down the driveway and seemed to be thinking of something. If Stefan had a gun, he might have shot him, although the men in the van would surely hear it if he had. The only weapon Stefan had was a knife, in his pocket.

Stefan was trying to decide what to do when the man went into the garage after the children. He waited a moment to see if the man would come right out again, but he didn't. Stefan crept closer to the door, hugging the side of the building. In the men in the van saw him, they gave no indication of it. They were probably watching the house more than the garage.

Stefan opened the door to the garage and looked inside. He saw the black curtains that he had seen before and the colored lights overhead. There were sounds of evil cackles and shrieks. The lights flickered, and the children screamed. Stefan supposed that they were having a good time, although it all seemed strange to him.

The man was nowhere to be seen. Stefan realized that if he was careful, he might be able to avoid the man and the other children in this small maze. Antonia was bound to be one of the last to leave . . .

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The first short hallway in the haunted house led off to the right of the door and had a bend in it.

"Did you just feel something?" one of the girls asked.

"Are these spider webs?" asked another, brushing thin strands away from her face.

It was one of the haunted house tricks that Philip had read about, hanging thin black threads so they would brush against the faces of the people who walked past.

"Possibly," their Guide to the Unknown said. "You never know what might be lurking in the darkness."

They rounded the bend and the girls shrieked when they saw the giant spider hanging there.

"Oh, that's just Lucifer," Philip said in a creepy voice. "You needn't worry. He just ate the last people to come through here."

"We're the first people to come through here," one of the older boys said.

"So you think," Philip taunted back. "You might just be the first who were able to leave."

The older boys rolled their eyes and bravely strutted past the spider the girls had ducked under. Lee, who was trailing behind the group, could see what they were doing. They were big boys now, and they weren't going to let any cheesy haunted house set up by their friend spook them. At least, not in front of the girls, they weren't!

The hallway led into the first room, which the Guide to the Unknown called The Dark Forest. He'd borrowed some garlands of fake leaves that Dotty had bought a few years ago for her harvest-themed Halloween and hung them up to give the impression of tree branches overhead. Jamie had a blue light shining down, mingled with a black light. When they came upon the witch stirring her cauldron, her face and the bones around her neck glowed. Jamie had propped her cauldron up with a couple of logs and put an orange light underneath so it looked like fire.

Alice the witch cackled. "Come children! Step into my cauldron! I haven't eaten in so long!"

"Watch out!" Philip said. "Skinwalkers use the bones of the dead to cast their evil spells."

"Skinwalkers?" one of the skeptics at the back of the group asked. The older boys were still refusing to be impressed by anything.

"Navajo witches," Philip explained. "They look like normal humans, but they can change into animals whenever they choose. Then, they use the bones of the dead to curse the living!"

The older boys started to laugh, but Mark, in full costume and decked out with more of Alice's glowing bones, jumped down from the chair in his hiding place behind them. He yelled and howled like a crazed animal while Jamie flashed the blue light on and off and played the sounds of thunder.

"Woah!" one of the boys yelled. Another actually shrieked and shoved against the girl behind him. The girls all screamed, and the oldest boy in the group laughed bravely.

As the group backed away from Mark, they backed right into Antonia. She came out of the corner where she was hiding, her costume glowing all over.

"Wheeeerrre are my chiiiiildren?" she wailed in her Romanian accent. "Wheeeere are my chiiiildren!"

It was an eerie sight, and the other kids in the group couldn't look away.

"In my cauldron, in my cauldron!" chanted the witch. "All the children! In my cauldron, in my cauldron!" Alice's voice wasn't loud, but the chanting was creepy.

The kids didn't know whether to look at the witch or the wailing woman.

"Wheeeeere are my chiiiildren!" Antonia wailed again.

Mark gave another wild yell and shook his bones at the other kids, tossing some of them in the air.

"More bones!" shrieked Alice, pulling out another string of glowing bones from her cauldron. "More bones! More bones of the dead!"

"This way!" Philip called to the group, leading them on to the next room before they could become too accustomed to this one.

Lee was relieved to see that Antonia was safe and enjoying her role in the haunted house. He didn't see the dark figure lingering behind the curtains, watching. The dark figure recognized the wailing woman's accent. He crouched in the darkness and waited to see what would happen next as Lee followed the children into the next room.

The mad scientist's chamber was full of flashing lights, from the Christmas light computer to the plasma globe to the yellow, red, and green lights that Jamie switched on and off, apparently at random. There was a black light directly over Tom's head, making his white lab coat and shaggy white wig glow. The sound effects changed to the bubbling of various concoctions and the zaps of electricity.

"Gooood eeeevening!" Tom said to the other kids. "Step into my lab! You're just in time to see me finish my experiment."

The other kids drew closer. The girls peered at the body lying on the table. A couple of the boys couldn't help but put their hands on the plasma globe.

"This is awesome!" one of them said.

Tom knew that they would probably do that, and he was ready for it.

"No!" he cried. "You mustn't do that! It's too soon! The energy! I haven't attached the head yet!" He held up the papier-mâché head.

Andy saw the head in his hands and sat up with a groan. The girls shrieked and jumped back, bumping into the boys in the close confines of the "lab." Andy groaned again, and putting out his hands, he got off the table and shuffled toward the crowd. He didn't have a lot of shuffling room, but he did his best. The older boys laughed at how awkwardly the monster rose from the table, but the girls were still screaming and trying to get away from him as he lumbered forward.

"This way!" Philip shouted, leading them all toward the way out.

"Run!" Tom shouted.

The monster groaned.

As the kids ran through the short hallway that led back toward the door, hands reached out through the black curtains, as if they were trying to grab the kids as they ran past. It was another of Philip's ideas. Mark and Tom were the ones doing it, making sure the exit was as scary as the entrance. The girls screamed and the boys were laughing.

"That was fun," Jeff said when they got outside.

"I thought you said that you weren't scared," Philip said. He'd been annoyed when the boys had laughed at parts of the haunted house.

"I wasn't," Jeff said.

"Yeah," Ben said. "He always shrieks like a girl when a werewolf jumps out at him."

"It was a Skinwalker," Jeff said with dignity.

"It was still fun," Adam said. "The girls were kind of scared. Next time, you should invite more of them to come."

The other boys grinned at Philip, and Philip grinned back thoughtfully.

"You've got a point," he said.

The haunted house experience had gone pretty well, Lee thought. It would have disappointing if the kids hadn't been able to do it after all their hard work, but part of him was relieved that it was over. The wind was picking up again, and Lee still had that nagging feeling that something wasn't right.

He went back into the haunted house, where Tom and Mark were helping Andy out of his costume.

"Hold your hands up," Mark said, trying to pull off the coat so they could get to Andy's shoulder pads.

"What?" Andy asked.

"I said-"

"Maybe we should take him back inside like this," Tom suggested. "It's a pretty good costume, so he might as well show it off more."

"What?" Andy asked.

"I don't know if he's really enjoying it like that, guys," Lee said.

"I kind of am," Tom said with a grin.

"What?" Andy asked.

"Why don't you guys take him back to the house and help him out of his costume there?" Lee suggested. Something about the haunted house was bothering him now that most of the children were gone. He wasn't sure what was wrong, but something was, and he felt like he had to get the remaining children out as quickly as possible.

"Okay," Mark said. "Come on, Andy."

"What?" Andy said.

Tom picked up the flashlight that he'd brought into the haunted house and followed the two of them out. Lee went looking for Jamie and the girls.

Alice was still in the dark forest room, picking up her glowing bone beads. Mark had scattered the ones he'd been wearing on the floor.

"Alice, where is Antonia?" Lee asked.

"She went upstairs to talk to Jamie," Alice said.

"The storm is getting worse again," Lee said. "I think you'd better go back to the house. Take your flashlight. I'll help Antonia and Jamie finish up here."

Lee's uneasy feeling was getting worse. The sound effects were still playing even though Jamie should have turned them off by now. What was happening up in the loft?

Alice left with her flashlight, and Lee started toward the stairs to the loft. He slipped his hand inside his coat, ready to pull his gun if necessary. His heart thumped underneath his holster. He had no idea what he would find at the top of the stairs.

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Things seemed to be working out well for Stefan, or so he thought as he crouched in the darkness of the children's haunted house. He now knew which girl was Antonia. The accent was a dead giveaway. She was the phantom girl all dressed in white, wailing about lost children.

The man following the children through the haunted house hadn't spotted him. With luck, he might yet spirit Antonia out of there without being caught.

Luck was with Stefan again as most of the children left the haunted house. In the room he was watching, only three children remained. The boy dressed as some kind of weird animal wearing fake bones tossed the bones on the floor and ran out after the others. The girl dressed as a witch started to pick the bones up, and Antonia said something to her about going to talk to "Jamie."

Stefan had to crouch further into the folds of the black curtains as Antonia ran past him and ducked behind another curtain. Stefan slowly crept forward and looked where she had gone. There was a staircase hidden behind the curtain that led to the floor above. Stefan didn't know who Jamie was, but as far as he was concerned, the situation was perfect. Antonia was cornered. All he had to do was to keep her up there with her friend until the others left. Then, he could take her away with him.

He moved slowly up the stairs. They creaked slightly under his weight, but with the weird sound effects that filled this garage, no one would hear them.

At the top of the stairs, he could see Antonia sitting on the floor next to a boy. The boy was surrounded by cords and switches and a tape player that was making those strange sounds. There was a flashlight on the floor next to him, but otherwise, the room was very dark.

"Lee?" the boy asked, turning to look at Stefan.

Stefan pulled the knife from his jacket pocket. "Neither of you move!" he hissed. "Don't you make a sound!"

Antonia opened her mouth as if to scream, but Stefan said, "Don't you dare!"

"Who are you?" the boy, Jamie, asked quietly.

"That is no concern of yours," Stefan said. "You both will just sit there quietly until everyone leaves."

"He's one of my uncles," Antonia said softly. Her voice suddenly lacking the Romanian accent that had identified her for Stefan. "He's a resistance fighter in Romania."

Stefan moved closer to the children. "That's right, child. Do you remember me? I held you when you were small."

"I remember you from the school," Antonia said. "Jamie was there when you tried to grab me."

"I don't mean you any harm, Antonia."

"And that's why you're holding a knife," Antonia said. There was a hard edge to her voice.

Stefan chuckled. "You're right. I want you to come with me, and I couldn't risk anyone trying to stop me."

"What are you going to do with her?" Jamie asked.

"I'm taking her home, to Romania."

"She is home. She lives here." The boy spoke boldly, although it was still very much a boy's voice, not a man's.

"You don't understand!" Stefan hissed. "You don't know what's like to fight for your country every day, to risk death so that your country and your people can live under the 'freedom' that you Americans say that you prize. People like Anton Petrescu run and hide, thinking only of themselves. They want to enjoy freedoms that they haven't earned, raising their children in foreign countries while their own country suffers! Do you even remember Romania, Antonia?"

The children had backed away as far as they could from Stefan, scooting back along the floor until they sat with their backs to the wall just beneath the window. Stefan took another step toward them.

"I know you must be frightened, Antonia," Stefan continued. "But you needn't be. There are people in Romania who remember you, who have missed you all these years. We want a great future for our country, and you're going to be part of it. I just need you to convince your father to help."

Stefan didn't hear the man approaching behind him. He only saw something change on the boy's face. The boy didn't move his head, but his eyes widened in surprise. By the time Stefan turned around, the man already had his gun drawn.

"Drop your knife!" the man barked.

"Or what?" Stefan sneered. "You'll shoot? The children are behind me. If you shoot here, you could hit one of them." He took another step back, moving closer to the children.

"Drop your knife," the man said firmly, taking another step closer to Stefan.

Stefan also moved back a step. "Maybe you don't care about the children."

"Drop the knife!" the man insisted, moving forward again.

Stefan stepped backward. "I wo-AAAAAAAaahhhhh!"

Stefan had been so focused on the children that he hadn't paid attention to where the trapdoor was. Backing up, he stepped through the open hole. One foot was still on the attic floor, and the other was dangling in open space. He had to drop the knife in order to grab the edge of the trap door in order to avoid falling through the rest of the way.

Quick as a flash, Jamie grabbed the dropped knife.

"Good work!" Lee said.

Stefan struggled to pull himself up again. As he flailed, he reached out toward Jamie and the knife. Lee kicked Stefan's supporting leg, and he fell through the trap door to the concrete floor below.

"I warned you that trap door was dangerous," Lee said to Jamie. "Your mother's right about that."

Antonia leaned over to peer at her uncle through the opening. "He's moving!"

Lee looked down and saw Stefan getting unsteadily to his feet. He limped off in the direction of the side door. Lee swore.

"I'll take care of it," Lee said. "You two, stay here."

Lee charged down the steps, taking short cuts through the curtains as he followed Stefan.

Outside, Philip and Alice were approaching the garage, Philip lighting the way with his flashlight.

"I wonder what's taking them so long," Philip said.

Stefan burst out of the garage door, limping. He knew that he couldn't jump the fence again with his injured leg. He had no choice but to try to make it down the driveway to the sidewalk. He also knew that he didn't have much time before the men in the van spotted him. Spotting Alice, he grabbed her, thinking that he could use her as a shield to keep the security team back until he could get to Vasile and make his escape. Alice screamed as Stefan grabbed her and tried to push her along in front of him.

Suddenly, there was a heavy weight on Stefan's back and someone yelling in his ear. Something hard hit him in the side of the head, shining its light in his eyes. Stefan's injured leg gave out under the extra weight, and he toppled to the ground, his breath going out of him as he hit the driveway. Alice also fell to the ground, hitting the wet pavement with a hard smack.

Lee arrived in time to see Alice sitting on the driveway, just staring at Philip, who was sitting on Stefan's back, holding his flashlight and pinning Stefan to the ground. The men from the van were running up the driveway. Lee managed to tuck his gun back into his holster before Philip could turn and see it.

"You can get up now, son," Agent Wheeler said, helping Philip to his feet while Agent Johnson cuffed Stefan.

"Wow, it's the police!" Philip said, recognizing Wheeler as one of the "plainclothes policemen" from the incident at the school. "Were you guys staked out here the whole time?"

The agents looked at each other.

"Well," Wheeler said, "there are always pranksters out around Halloween. We were just checking the neighborhood to make sure everything was alright."

"Glad you were here, officers," Lee said.

Looking past them, Lee saw a gray car drive off down the street. With a sinking feeling, Lee suspected that Vasile had seen the men running to catch his brother and had decided to take off. Was he still a threat?

Philip went over to Alice and helped her up as the Agency men walked Stefan down to their van. The palms of her hands were skinned where she tried to catch herself as she hit the ground.

"Come on," Philip said gently. "I'll help you get cleaned up."

"That's a good idea," Lee said. "Take her inside, and tell your mother I could use her help out here."

Lee spoke to the agents, arranging for them to send another security team to take over when they took Stefan back to headquarters for questioning. With Vasile still on the loose, Lee didn't want to leave either the Petrescu house or the King house unguarded.

When Amanda came to see what was going on, Lee explained everything to her.

"I can't believe that I missed everything! Philip is already bragging to the other kids about how he saved Alice and stopped a runaway criminal," Amanda said as they went to the garage to tell Jamie and Antonia that it was safe to come back to the house now. "I don't know what I'm going to tell everyone's parents."

"How about that everyone had a great time, Philip is a hero, and that Dotty's idea for a neighborhood watch is a good one?"


	22. The Last Time

**Chapter 22: The Last Time**

"It's alright," Lee reassured Dotty for the fourth time. "There was a man hiding in the garage, but the police caught him."

"I tackled him before the police got him!" Philip bragged.

"I can't believe one of those men from the other day came back!" Dotty said.

"It's alright," Lee repeated calmly. "The police have him, and nobody's going to come back again. It looks like this guy broke his leg falling through the trap door from the loft."

"I knew that trap door was dangerous!" Dotty said. "Amanda, didn't I always tell you it was dangerous? Thank goodness, it wasn't one of the children!"

The kids weren't worried about the situation at all. The party guests were all buzzing with excitement. Philip was a hero, and he was definitely making the most of his new hero status, telling and retelling the story as dramatically as he could. Jamie and Antonia were more subdued, although some of their friends wanted to know what they'd seen from the loft window.

"Not much," Jamie said, putting them off. "Just a lot of people running around." Antonia nodded in agreement.

"I can't believe the things that have been happening in this neighborhood lately!" Dotty said. "What will the other parents think?"

Amanda looked at Lee, and he knew what she was thinking. It was the kind of moment they'd always dreaded, having the children involved directly in Agency business, put in harm's way, and it wasn't just their kids, either. But, Lee had an answer.

"The truth," Lee said. At Amanda's astonished look, Lee quickly went on, "That a couple of strange men who were harassing children by the school recently hid out in the garage, trying to cause trouble on Halloween." For Dotty's benefit he added, "There are a lot of strange people out there, and they probably thought it would be funny to scare the kids."

Dotty shook her head sadly. "It never used to be like this when I was young. Why can't people just treat Halloween like it's a peaceful harvest festival?"

Dotty went off to comfort Alice, who was still sitting next to Philip and seemed a little in awe of the way he'd tackled her would-be abductor. Philip, a former Junior Trailblazer, had done a good job bandaging her hands, which made him even more of a hero in everyone's eyes. Tom, Alice's brother, was looking at Philip with new respect. Antonia's parents hugged her, and Jamie stood a little off to the side. He was kind of hugging himself and looking at Lee, his thoughts still unreadable.

Lee kept an eye out for the new security team to arrive, and when they did, he had one of the men escort the Petrescus home. As they left, Lee whispered to the agent that he should stay with them in their house that night. It might not be necessary, but since Vasile was still on the loose, they would find it reassuring. Jamie didn't like to see Antonia go, but Lee quietly reassured him that everything would be alright and promised to talk to him later. They had a lot to talk about.

After what had happened, no one was interested in watching scary movies or telling scary stories. The kids munched on their snacks and talked about what happened until their parents came to get them. Some of the neighborhood parents were distressed when they came to pick up their children and heard about the incident.

"I can't believe a thing like this could happen in our neighborhood!" many of them said.

Amanda reassured them that none of the children had been hurt, and most of them had even missed the incident completely, having been in the house when it happened. The kids were excited by the events of the evening, and those that hadn't actually seen what happened were envious of the ones who had. By the time the night was over, they'd exaggerated the incident to the point of folk legend, inventing elaborate stories that they told to each other about how the man hiding in the garage was probably an escaped convict, wanted by the police. Some of the stories turned the man into an axe murderer, although no axes had figured anywhere into the situation. Amanda did her best to tell the parents that none of that was true, and Dotty got her chance to tell the neighbors her idea of forming a neighborhood watch, which met with general approval.

By the time all the guests had left, everyone was exhausted. Dotty ushered the boys upstairs to get ready for bed, and Lee and Amanda were left alone downstairs. Amanda leaned tiredly against Lee, and he hugged her tightly.

"Well," Lee said finally. "We got through that one."

"Yes," Amanda said. "But, it was too close for comfort."

Quietly, Lee asked, "Has it changed your mind about marriage?"

Amanda's head came up. "No! No, of course not." With a quick glance toward the stairs, she whispered, "Lee, you _are_ my husband. Nothing is going to change that. I don't know what I would do without you." Then, she asked, "Has it changed your mind?"

"No," Lee said. "This did hit pretty close to home, but all things considered, it went pretty well. I'm really pleased with the way the boys handled themselves. If Billy has his way, this will be the last time we get any assignment like this." Then, Lee grinned. "Besides, I've made up my mind that, between Agency business and the trouble that you, Dotty, and the kids can run into just in the suburbs, I don't want to let any of you out of my sight, ever."

Amanda gave a tired laugh and leaned against Lee again.

"I know," she said. "Even if I didn't work for the Agency, Antonia or someone very much like her could have ended up in this neighborhood, and the boys would still have made friends with her. It's just like mother and that Russian scientist. So many things like that happen all the time, it's just that most people don't get mixed up in them like my family does."

"Probably because they care about other people more," Lee suggested. "They can't help but get involved in other people's problems."

"But I don't think I could face it all without you," Amanda said. "You and the Agency have saved me more times than you've put me in danger. Whatever happens to us in the future, I want you to be with me all the time, no matter what."

Lee kissed the top of her head.

"I'm staying here with all of you tonight," he said into her dark curls. "I don't think that there's any more danger, but I want to be here with all of you, just in case."

"Lee, we can't, with the boys-"

"I'll sleep on the couch," Lee said. Privately, he thought that soon that would be for the last time, too.

When Dotty came downstairs and they told her that Lee would be staying over, she said, "Oh, bless you! This evening has been so distressing. I'm sure we'll all sleep much better with you here. I'll just, um, get you some blankets."

She glanced back and forth between the two of them as though wondering whether Lee would spend the entire night on the couch or not.

"Let her wonder," Lee thought tiredly.

Lee and Amanda went around the house, checking doors and windows while Dotty brought down sheets and blankets for Lee. Lee hadn't brought any pajamas with him since he hadn't expected to stay the night, but he removed his jacket, shoes, and belt to make himself more comfortable. He carefully tucked his gun and holster underneath his jacket and placed them beneath the coffee table in front of the couch. They were within easy reach if he needed them but out of sight of the boys. He made his bed with Amanda's help and kissed her goodnight before she went upstairs to bed.

Lee longed to go upstairs with her, but with the boys in the house, it would have given them the wrong impression. He had to set a good example for them. Well, a reasonably good one, anyway. Besides, he was on guard duty, and he could do that better on the ground floor. He checked all the doors and windows a second time before settling himself on the couch.

Then, he thought of something. He got up, put his shoes back on, and went to the back door. He stepped outside for just a moment, retrieving the key that he knew Amanda had hidden under the flower pot there. Then, he went back inside and locked up again. He resolved to tell Amanda not to hide spare keys outside anymore. He'd done it a time or two himself since he'd learned the habit from her, but it wasn't safe. That was going to be the first tip that he'd offer to the neighborhood watch.

"Lee?" Jamie came into the family room from the kitchen. He was in his pajamas and robe.

"Can't sleep?" Lee asked.

"Can I talk to you?"

"Sure."

Lee had hoped that their talk could wait for the next day, when he wasn't so tired, but maybe it was best for them to talk now, since they had the chance to talk without the family. With Jamie being so quiet and secretive and trying to avoid talking to him, Lee was actually relieved that Jamie now wanted to talk. Jamie settled in beside him on the couch.

Jamie said, "You're not really a documentary director, are you?"

"Antonia told you that," Lee said. There wasn't any point in pretending that she hadn't.

"Yes," Jamie said. "She said that you work for the government. She told me that her father has a lot of enemies from when they lived in Romania, and your job is to help protect him."

"And her," Lee said.

"So it's all true?"

"I don't know everything that Antonia told you, but that much is true," Lee admitted. "I do work for the government, and her father does have enemies. A couple of them are actually his brothers. Stefan, the one you saw tonight, is in custody, and there is another called Vasile. They're wanted by the Romanian government, too. When Antonia's family moved into this neighborhood, I was assigned to protect them."

Jamie stared at him. "So, you're really a secret agent?" he asked slowly.

The moment had finally come.

"Yes," Lee said simply. He waited to see Jamie's reaction.

Jamie was still staring at him. "Yes?"

"Yes," Lee said again. "I'm a secret agent."

"Then what's all that stuff about IFF and documentary films about electricity and all that?"

"Because, if I told everyone that I'm a secret agent, I wouldn't be a secret agent," Lee patiently explained.

Jamie groaned and leaned back on the couch, covering his eyes. Lee smiled. All things considered, this wasn't going too badly.

"Wait a minute," Jamie said. "Do you have a badge?"

"I have an ID card," Lee said. "I don't always carry it with me because having ID can give you away, and this is meant to be secret."

"Do you have it now?" Jamie asked.

Lee reached down to his jacket and pulled out the small card holder that held his identification badge. He handed it to Jamie, and Jamie carefully inspected it.

"Lee is your real name?" he asked.

"Of course!" Lee said. "I wouldn't give a fake name to your mother."

"I thought maybe secret agents had to," Jamie said.

"No, not when we're with friends and family," Lee said. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before what I really do for a living, but part of the rules are that we can't tell anyone unless they absolutely have to know. Now, you need to know."

There was an awkward silence as Jamie seemed to be struggling with something. Finally he said, "Mom's a secret agent, too."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Antonia must have told him that, and it wasn't an easy thing for him understand.

Lee said, "Yes. And, like me, she can't talk about her work. Not to anyone. She would have told you before if she could."

"Does Grandma know? Does Philip?"

"No, just you, right now."

"Are you going to tell them?"

"I don't know," Lee admitted, running a hand through his hair. "I think we'll have to eventually. We weren't supposed to tell anyone, but they might have to know, just like you have to know because of what happened with Antonia. But, your mother and I might not stay with IFF. We might decide to leave the Agency."

"Why?"

The question surprised Lee. Jamie had already had some shocking revelations about his mother and Lee. Lee didn't want to have to explain about their marriage, too. While he felt bad about deceiving Jamie after he had worked hard to earn his trust, it was necessary to break the news of their real relationship slowly.

"Being a secret agent is a dangerous life," Lee said, "and it involves a lot of deception. We do what we do because we want to make our country a safer place. But, we both agree that we want to make our home a safer place for you and Philip. Have you told him about what Antonia told you?"

Jamie shook his head. "Antonia told me not to. She said that her parents didn't want her to tell anyone anything about her father's work or his enemies. She didn't really say who they were, just that he has them. She told me because she was scared and figured that I'd understand because you and mom work for the government. When she found out that I didn't know anything about it, she asked me not to tell Philip or anybody."

Lee nodded. "That's the point of secrecy. Sometimes, we keep secrets because we're trying to protect the ones we love. Even though we want to tell them, it might not be good for them to know. But, now I'm talking about it with you because it's important for you to understand."

"I think I do," Jamie said quietly.

"Good. I promise, not matter what, I'm going to make sure that you, your brother, your mother, and your grandmother are all safe."

"If it will help," Jamie said, "I'll keep your secret, too. I won't tell Philip or anybody until you say it's okay."

"Thank you," Lee said.

"You carry a gun," Jamie said. "Does mom?"

"Not unless she really has to. She hates them."

Jamie smiled. "She always says that guns are bad. But, after tonight, I wasn't sure."

"Guns are tools," Lee said. "You can use them to harm people or to keep them safe. It's what some people do with them that makes them bad."

Jamie reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out the knife that he'd taken from Stefan.

"I guess you'd better take this," he said.

"Yes," Lee said. "Thank you for keeping it safe. I was proud of how you kept your head this evening and got it away from Stefan when you had the chance. Your brother got a lot of credit for being a hero, but you're one, too."

"But, I'm not supposed to talk about it," Jamie guessed.

"It would be better if you didn't," Lee said. "In a way, you've been a spy, too. You kept secrets for the safety of other people, you kept your eyes and ears open, and you were ready to act when necessary to help your friend."

"And that's what you and mom do?"

"That's what we do," Lee said.

"Are you still awake?" Both Lee and Jamie jumped when they heard Dotty's voice. Lee shoved his ID and the knife into his pockets.

"I got up for a glass of milk," Dotty said. "What are you two talking about so late?"

Lee gave Jamie a warning glance.

"Oh, I just wanted Lee's advice on something," Jamie said to his grandmother.

"Oh, really? What do you need advice on at this time of night?"

Jamie thought quickly. "I was thinking about how Tommy likes to be called Tom now," he said. "Maybe he's right, and some names just don't sound grown up. I was thinking, maybe I should call myself something different. What do you think of Jim instead of Jamie?"

"If you ask me, I think I like Jamie better," Dotty said, coming over and giving the boy a hug.

"Well, I'll think about it some more," Jamie said.

"I think we'd both better go upstairs and let Lee get some sleep," Dotty said.

"Don't worry about it," Lee said. "That's what I'm here for."

Jamie turned and gave him a wink as Dotty led him back upstairs to bed.


	23. Promising Young Men and Women

**Chapter 23: Promising Young Men and Women**

Both Lee and Amanda were back at work in the Q-Bureau on Monday morning. They were both nervous, awaiting the arrival of Billy Melrose to talk about their future. Usually, when he wanted to talk to his best team, he asked them to come to his office down in bullpen of the Field Section, but what he had to say today was best said in the privacy of the Q-Bureau.

Lee and Amanda were each at their desks, looking over the personal items and bits of memorabilia that had collected there. There were no case files on their desks. There were no cases. All they knew was that Billy wanted to talk to them. They could only guess at what he had to say.

"I don't suppose that he'll let us work together again," Amanda said.

"I don't know," Lee said.

"I don't suppose I'll be working here at all much longer," Amanda said. "If one of us has to go, it should be me."

"If you go, I go, too," Lee said.

"Do you think we're going?" Amanda's eyes were worried.

Lee got up from his desk and went over to her.

"It doesn't matter," he said, grasping her hands. "Wherever we go, we go together."

"You love the Agency," Amanda said. "It's been your life. I'd be happy to resign if it meant that you could stay."

Lee laughed, and it wasn't a bitter laugh. "Oh, Amanda," he said. "I've loved working here, but it isn't my life. You are. You and the boys, now. I always knew that I wouldn't be a field agent forever. It's a young man's game, and I'm not that young anymore."

"Oh, Lee, you're not-"

"Shh," Lee said softly, putting a finger to her lips to stop her from saying the dreaded word, 'old.'

"We both knew that things couldn't stay the same forever," Lee said. "They never do."

"I've never really welcomed change much in my life," Amanda said. "I've had plenty, but I've never really welcomed it."

"Some changes are good," Lee said. "You taught me that."

Amanda looked surprised.

"Really," Lee said. "I didn't think I could ever work with a partner again before you. I didn't want the Q-Bureau when Billy gave it to me, but you thought it sounded great, and it was. I'd almost given up on the idea of marriage and children and anything resembling a normal life before I met you, but now, I've got you and two stepsons. I used to think that settling down with a family would be boring, but you and the boys have proved to me that it's anything but!"

Amanda laughed hard, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet!" she said.

"I sure hope not!" Lee said earnestly. "I'm hoping to see a lot more. Maybe we'll have that baby Billy and everyone thought we were having."

Amanda stopped laughing and regarded Lee seriously. "Do you want to?"

"I've thought about it," he said. "I've been thinking about it a lot, but that depends on you, too. If you don't want to or if it just doesn't happen, I'll be satisfied with Philip and Jamie. And, if Billy retires us, our chances of living to see the kids grow up are much better. You know, this is a dangerous business."

Amanda nodded. "You're right. This might be for the best. I'm just surprised that you're the one convincing me of that. I thought I might have to convince you."

"You already have," Lee said. "I'm just sorry that you haven't gotten to enjoy your career for as long as I have mine. You're good, you know."

Amanda glowed with the compliment. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"What will we do now?" Amanda asked.

"That's up to Billy."

At his soft tap at the door, Amanda sat up straighter, and Lee stood with one hand resting on the back of Amanda's chair. Whatever Billy said, he was standing by his wife, both figuratively and literally.

"Good morning, people," Billy said cheerfully. "You'll be happy to know that the Petrescus are safe. We caught Vasile at the airport, trying to leave the country on a false passport. Stefan and Vasile are both wanted by the Romanian government and would probably be executed if we sent them back, but we can probably hold them both for a few years on the charge of attempted kidnapping. The Petrescus won't have anything to worry about from them, and I think Anton will be relieved that his brothers will be safe from execution, even if they have to go to prison for awhile to avoid it."

"Well, that's wonderful," Amanda said. She was very happy for them, although her happiness was somewhat subdued by her own worries.

"I understand that your boys have become friends with the girl in the family, and there's no reason why they can't maintain the friendship," Billy said.

"Jamie will be glad to hear that," Amanda said.

"Your Philip sounds like a pretty tough kid," Billy said. "Aside from his broken leg, Stefan also got a couple of cracked ribs. We think it was from when Philip sat on him."

"We can't tell him that," Lee said. "He's already puffed up, being the neighborhood hero for tackling the bad guy. He's talking again about trying out for the football team in high school."

"I'm not sure I'm ready to think about that," Amanda said.

"It might be good for him. He needs a little discipline," Lee said, "but I think he's learning how to be a team player. He just can't be as rough on the other players as he was on Stefan."

"But, on both a personal and professional note," Billy said quietly, more seriously, "you know that there are some other things that we need to talk about. And there are some changes we need to make."

"We know," Lee said seriously.

"First, the personal" Billy said. "I've already told Lee, and I want you to know, Amanda, that I'm not angry that you got married without telling me or anyone else. I understand why you did it. I told you both once that I was fine with your relationship, whatever it turned out to be, and I meant it. You've both been good friends to me for years, and you've served this Agency well, and I've wanted to see you both happy."

Amanda relaxed a little, but Lee didn't.

"I think your relationship has been good for you both in a lot of ways," Billy said. "But, there is your professional relationship to consider. According to regulation, married couples cannot work together as partners or even be in the same unit."

"I understand," Amanda said, her voice slightly choked.

"But, that doesn't mean that either of you need to leave the Agency. Things are changing around here, and I need you two to be part of it."

"Sir?" Amanda said.

Billy sighed. "You've probably noticed that things aren't normal around here. They've been oddly quiet. You know why?"

"Why?" Lee asked.

"We think the Cold War is winding down."

Both Lee and Amanda were surprised.

"What do you mean?" Lee asked.

"Dr. Smyth and I have been discussing the situation with representatives of the CIA and the NSA. European agencies have also been noticing changes in the way the Russians are doing things. There's been some foreign intelligence activity, especially activity related to gathering information about technological advances. But, there isn't even quite as much as there was last year. The conclusion is that many of their agents who were active abroad have been called home to deal with internal crises. The Eastern Bloc countries have grown more unstable. There's political unrest, and the Soviet Union seems unable to stop it. There are indications that the Soviet economy has grown weak, even weaker than we previously thought. It's possible that the Soviet Union isn't going to last much longer."

Lee and Amanda were stunned. They were both born after World War II. For them, the Soviet Union and the Cold War had always existed. It wasn't a good thing, living with the constant threat of nuclear war, the technological race, and the authoritarianism that kept Eastern Europe under Soviet rule, but that was the world they had always known. Without them, what would the world be like?

"I think you both understand the old saying that nature abhors a vacuum," Billy went on. "If the Soviet Union collapses and the resistance movements that have been gaining power in the Eastern Bloc countries succeed, the world is going to be a very different place. New people are going to take control in those countries, and we don't know yet who they are or what they're going to be like. That's where you come in."

"Is this Dr. Smyth's project?" Lee asked.

"Yes," Billy said. "He wants to form a special department within Field Section to gather intelligence about these emerging nations, or perhaps I should say re-emerging nations. We want to know who and what we're likely to be dealing with, and we'll need someone to coordinate that in cooperation with the CIA, NSA, and our allies in Europe. Lee, we've chosen you."

Lee was stunned. "I'm a trained field operative," Lee said. "I'm not management, and an operation of this size-"

"You won't be working alone," Billy said, "and your field skills are precisely why we want you to do this. You've been to most of the countries involved, and you know what it's like in the field and what your people are likely to be facing. You've been managing the Q-Bureau well, even though it's only been you and your partner. The strange cases you've handled here show that you know how to handle yourself in unusual situations. It's made you more flexible, more adaptable than some of your colleagues. Even though your new role will be largely as a coordinator, not in the field, you can anticipate the types of unusual problems your people will have to handle. You're what we need for this job."

Lee felt a little overwhelmed, and he glanced at Amanda. At her smile and encouraging nod, Lee said, "It's an honor to be offered this job. I accept."

"I thought you would," Billy said with smile.

He was still struggling to wrap his mind around the image of a future with no Soviet Union, but Billy was right. He had learned that, welcome or not, change was a constant in life, and this change might be one that everyone would truly welcome. He didn't know exactly what the future held, but he was eager to find out.

"You will have a staff of advisors who have studied the Eastern Bloc nations, both before and after the Second World War," Billy said. "They can advise you about the different ethnic groups in each region and how they are likely to react to the shifts in power. You'll also have a team of field agents of your own, promising young men and women who will carry out your intelligence-gathering missions. You and your department will still report to me as part of the Field Section, but the missions themselves will be your responsibility, conceived by you and executed by your people."

"What about the Q-Bureau?" Lee asked. And Amanda, he wondered silently.

"The Q-Bureau will be in good hands," Billy said. "I'm giving it to the only other current employee, Amanda."

Amanda looked surprised, and Lee said, "Amanda is an excellent agent, but I have to admit that I don't like the idea of her going into the field without me. We're partners, and I want to be the one watching her back."

"You won't have to worry about that," Billy said. "I'm not giving Amanda another partner, and she won't be going out into the field. Like you, I'm changing her role to that of a supervisor. I have a team of new recruits who can handle the field work that I'll be throwing her way and possibly help her close some of the old, unsolved cases. There's no conflict of personal interest for you here because you'll each be working in different units of Field Section, although it's possible that, once in awhile, some of Amanda's cases may tie in with your new assignment. Do you think that the two of you can work together from time to time in spite of your personal relationship?"

"Yes!" they both answered.

Billy laughed. "I know this is all going to be a big adjustment for everyone. It will take some time for each of you to put your units together and adjust to your new roles. By the way, how are things on the personal side? Have you talked to Dotty and the kids? And, do I announce your wedding or engagement to the department?"

"You can announce our engagement," Amanda said, "but you can tell them that it isn't necessary to have a baby shower. At least, not yet."

"We talked to Dotty and the boys yesterday," Lee said, "and they all approve. We've also set a date for our wedding. Our second wedding, that is. They still don't know about the first."

"Great, when it is?" Billy asked.

"We're getting married on the same day we did the first time," Amanda said.

"Amanda figured that I'd have an easier time if I didn't have to remember two anniversary dates," Lee said. Amanda poked him in the side.

"Am I invited?" Billy asked slyly.

"Yes," Lee said.

"We're breaking the news about the Agency to the family slowly," Amanda said. "So far, Jamie is the only one who knows what we really do. He's coping with it pretty well. I think Philip will probably think it's cool. Mother will have a hard time accepting it, and we might not be able to tell her the full truth right away, but I think we can tell her enough so that she'll understand that we work together, so you and Jeannie can come to the wedding."

"It's just going to be a small wedding in Amanda's backyard," Lee said.

"Our backyard," Amanda emphasized.

"I'm happy for you both," Billy said, "and I'll be glad to come."

Lee and Amanda smiled at each other. Their lives were changing. The whole world was changing. But, in some ways, it was all changing for the better. The best part was that they would be facing these changes together.


	24. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

A few weeks after Antonia Negrescu arrived home in Bucharest, a small package arrived for her, sent through the Romanian embassy in the United States. Her father received it in her behalf and was surprised to discover that it contained a small silver bracelet with turquoise stones and a note, written in Romanian. The note read:

"Happy belated birthday, Antonia! I am sorry that your visit to the United States was so short. I hope that you will be able to visit us again soon. Your friend, Francine."

When Mihail Negrescu gave the bracelet to his daughter and asked who Francine was, Antonia laughed and said, "I guess I do have a friend in America."

Two years later, the end of the Cold War was a reality. In the autumn of 1989, a series of revolutions toppled the leaders of Eastern Bloc nations. New governments took their places, and the Berlin Wall came down. Romania finally held its long-awaited revolution, and its former Communist leader was executed at Christmas.

Lee Stetson watched the news reports on television at home with his wife and one of their two boys.

"I didn't think they would let him live," Lee said. "What a way to celebrate the holiday."

"But, you're not sorry, are you?" Philip asked.

Jamie wasn't there. He'd gone down the street to visit Antonia and was no doubt watching the news with her family. Anton had already told Lee that he wasn't planning to return to Romania permanently. He and his family had lived in the United States for so long that it was the only home Antonia could remember, although he thought that he might like to take her to visit someday, when things calmed down, so that she could see where she had come from.

"Not really," Lee admitted. "This change has been coming for a long time, and I think things will be better this way."

He looked at Amanda, who held their infant daughter. She had come as a surprise, but she was a welcome one. Lee didn't know what the future held for her, but it seemed that she was going to grow up in a world without a Cold War. Perhaps other problems would arise in the future, but for the moment, they could enjoy the change.

 **The End**

 **Happy Halloween!**


End file.
